


Far from Innocent

by thisiswhyishouldntwritefanfic



Series: Relative Innocence [2]
Category: Heathers (1988)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Case Fic, F/M, Flashbacks, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-06 19:38:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 68,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12824625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisiswhyishouldntwritefanfic/pseuds/thisiswhyishouldntwritefanfic
Summary: Veronica Sawyer tries to find a serial killer copying the murder of her friend without losing her sanity. Her prime suspect should be dead, but he just showed up in her life claiming to be innocent.Well, more or less.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I had thought I'd maybe get this idea out of my system when I did the first piece. It wasn't exactly complete, but it was enough where it could maybe have done it, but then I had all this backstory and things I hadn't gotten to explain that were bothering me, and I watched the movie again, trying to understand what I'd seen before, and while a lot of my ideas were apparently influenced by ideas introduced by the musical in other stories I read, I still think there was more to JD than just a straight up psychotic killer. I'm almost certainly wrong, but I wanted a chance to show what he might do if he sort of turned his life around and also a bit of how it managed to go as wrong as it did.
> 
> And of course, I picked a very twisted way of doing that.

* * *

Innocent. Veronica's head spun, and she held onto her apartment door, trying to keep herself on her feet as she struggled to make sense of any of this. JD was standing there, a few feet away, alive, and telling her he was innocent.

Innocent was something she didn't know that JD could ever have claimed to be, though she thought sometimes she wanted to believe he could have been. She wanted to believe it was Heather Chandler's death that convinced him that he could kill anyone he disagreed with, that he could get away with it. She wanted to believe that he wasn't always crazy, that there had been something good in him, something that disappeared as she knew him and the bodies started adding up.

Three bodies. Four if she counted him.

Heather and Martha had only tried to kill themselves. They hadn't done it.

Three deaths. Not four, not if he was alive.

Sometimes she tried to think it was small enough, that somehow three lives wasn't too much, not enough to take away her own.

“You're not innocent.”

“Neither are you, sweetheart.”

She shook her head. She wasn't doing this. It wouldn't be the first dream or hallucination, the first accusation. She carried them with her, her ghosts, and they were so heavy she wanted to give up, but she would not let this JD show up and make her do it. She would never kill herself. That was what he wanted, and she wouldn't give it to him.

“You like to edit the facts to suit your own perspective. It's all a carefully censored entry in your diary, leaving out the stuff that you don't want anyone else to know and keeping the truth from being seen. You do it to yourself, too. You want to pretend you never saw it coming, never saw anything wrong in any of it, but you did. You can't make me the villain to erase everything you did. It doesn't work that way.”

“I didn't mean to kill any of them.”

“Maybe not,” JD said, surprising her by acknowledging that when before he always argued that it was what she wanted. “That doesn't mean you had no part in it. And who the hell said I was just talking about them dying?”

“You. I should have known there was something off with you from day one and the cafeteria.”

“Well, in your defense, everyone should have. Funny how that goes, isn't it? Kid brings a gun to the school, shoots a couple of blanks—incidentally, it's a fallacy that blanks don't hurt anyone—and somehow all that happens is a suspension. No real discussion with parents, no what the hell are you doing with the gun, no nothing. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if someone actually tried to get my father to discuss any of that.” JD stopped, shaking his head as he corrected himself. “No, I know what would have happened to me. Still not sure if he would have shown what he was or if it would have made a damned bit of difference. It certainly didn't when my mother died.”

“You can't blame her death for what you did.”

He shook his head. “You accuse me of not listening, but you're the one that's not listening. I never said I blamed her death for any of what I did in Sherwood. That's not what it was about.”

“Right. It was about love. Our love was God, so you killed anyone you disagreed with.”

“You know, for someone who is as smart as you claim to be, you're being an idiot about this whole thing. Think about it, Veronica. How the hell could I have possibly survived that bombing? And how could I be standing here on my feet? Well?”

She closed her eyes, cursing herself. Though she'd changed a lot of the details, given him years as she'd passed herself, he was dead. She knew that. She'd been arguing with a ghost again, one that was never here and never real.

“Think about it.”

She opened her eyes, ready to yell at him again, not caring if he was real or not because the yelling tended to make them fade or at least prompt an irritated neighbor to pound on the wall and bring her back to reality.

He was gone.

* * *

“Richards, we have to talk,” Veronica said. She knew she probably didn't look sane, though she'd done her best to appear professional today. She had to convince him not to do this press conference. She shut the door behind her. “You have to call off the press conference.”

“We've had this talk before,” Richards said with a frown. “We're not calling it off.”

“Yes, we are,” Veronica insisted. “You can't go out there and tell them that there's a serial killer. You can't do it.”

“Did the killer make contact with you? Did he threaten you?”

“Yes,” Veronica said. “And no. Richards, the only person sick enough to be imitating Heather Chandler's death is already dead. And while I may have dreamed about him last night, he wasn't there. He wasn't in my apartment. He didn't come to tell me he was innocent. He's dead. He blew himself up right in front of me. I saw him die.”

Richards frowned. “You never said you had a suspect before.”

She put a hand to her head. “I never said it because it's insane. He would have had to survive a bomb strapped to his chest, and he couldn't have. It doesn't make any sense.”

“And how do you know this bomber was behind the fake suicides?”

“I... I used to date him.”

Richards sighed, setting down his glasses. “Look, Veronica, even if you dated a guy who killed himself, if he confessed to faking that first suicide all those years ago, that doesn't change the facts, and the facts are that five girls are dead in the exact same way. They fit the same victim profile. The deaths are staged. This is the work of a serial killer. It may not be the work of the one you think it is, but it's still a serial killer. So I am going to hold this press conference.”

“Richards—”

“And I'm putting you on leave and scheduling you for mandatory sessions with Dr. Dobbs. Don't bother arguing with me. You do the therapy, or you leave the bureau. It's that simple.”

* * *

“I was starting to wonder if I should lock the doors for good,” Enid observed as he dragged himself inside the office. He almost hadn't come back, knowing that this little shit hole of a safe haven was as good as gone. He'd seen Veronica.

That was a mistake, but he'd known as soon as he heard about Grant's daughter that they'd think he did it. Veronica would. Her choice of career surprised him, since he had always figured she was too smart for the bureaucracy, but she had a gun, and that had always suited her more than she thought it would. She had a beautiful case of self-deception, and he'd actually liked that about her.

“You could.”

“Because you killed five girls and staged their suicides?”

He whirled to face Enid. “Is that what you think I did? If that's true, why the hell are you still here? You should have run and turned me into the cops. Or are you bait? You wait here, tell them I'm back, and then you let them take me away.”

“I know you didn't do it.”

He snorted. “You are very naïve, Niddie. It's not an attractive quality, trust me on that.”

“And I have no interest in jumping your bones,” she said, shaking her head. “It was never about that with us. You're like my brother. You irritate me in all the same ways. Even now.”

“Even when you're accusing me of murder. Very cute. Also not very smart.”

“I told you—I know you didn't do it. I work with you, remember? I answer the phones, schedule the appointments, give you enough to string them along during the initial interview, and then hack my way into more information so you can actually investigate any of the crimes people ask you about. I am a part of everything you do here. We were working together on the days four of those five girls were killed, and the fifth you were in the hospital.”

He frowned. “No. You're giving me an alibi I don't have or want from you.”

“First girl, Abby Marten. We were working on the death of Jack Jones. He'd gone missing, his wife asked you for an answer on whether he was alive or dead, and we found he was very dead. Second girl, Theresa Connors. A grieving family wanted you to prove that their father hadn't changed his will. And you did. Third girl, Jackie Harrison. We were looking for a missing person again. Turns out he stole from his company and disappeared to build a life with his twenty something mistress. Fourth girl, Betsy Grant. We were looking into that weirdo case where that woman was being 'gaslighted.' Fifth girl, Tracey James. You were in the hospital after locating a missing girl in a child prostitution ring. They really didn't like you for that. And you're still limping.”

He folded his arms over his chest. “Working with you doesn't mean I couldn't have found time to slip away and kill someone. It's not proof.”

She rolled her eyes. “You know what you're like on a case. You don't eat, you barely sleep, and you somehow function on convenience store slushies. You didn't leave for any extended amount of time, and even if I did sleep, you didn't. You never do.”

“Not helping your case.”

“I'm not making one for court, damn it. If I wanted to be a lawyer, I'd go back to school.”

“What do you want?”

Enid swallowed. “I want to help you find who killed them. Don't say you're not going to. I know you are. I just don't want you shutting me out when you do.”

He studied her, not sure what he thought about her. Enid was a strange mix of things. Part innocent, part fraud, and he'd never understood why she stuck with him. Her naïve idea of justice wasn't enough since he used fraud to do everything he did, and she could have worked with any number of legitimate investigators who actually could afford to pay her instead of a fake psychic who barely made any money.

He didn't count the interest on the funds he'd taken from Big Bud. That wasn't the same, and that was from another life. If he was a better person, he'd never touch it at all. That money was tainted. It always had been.

“I have files on all the girls, and Mrs. Grant told me she wanted you to examine the vibrations in her house.”

“You're kidding.”

“No. She's still very sure you're the real thing, and your refusal to take her money just proves that to her.”

“Idiots. The whole world is filled with mindless sheep.”

“Except you.”

He snorted. “No, I sold out years ago.”

* * *

“This stuff is ridiculously heavy,” Enid grumbled from beside him. “Remind me next time to hire my own assistant.”

He gave her a look, and she shuddered. She hated when he went around in the hood, unable to separate herself from the theatricality of the moment, not that he'd deny the look was creepy as hell. That was why he'd chosen it. Every part of his role as Judas Dane was calculated. He wanted them thinking he was something else, something mystical and dangerous. Anyone with sense wouldn't look that closely at him, since they'd see the act for what it was—an act.

The few desperate ones he'd run into like Mrs. Grant, they were different. They believed in spite of everything, and the act gave them something to tell their faith, a way to encourage their fear.

“You know we'd have to set up something in advance to fool this woman, so why am I dragging around the bag of tricks?”

“Why do you think?”

“Seriously? You made me do this just to piss me off?”

He didn't answer her, but she already had it. She was somewhat amusing when she was irritated. Enid swore under her breath, and he could see her considering dropping the equipment, but she didn't, knocking on the door instead.

After a few moments, Mrs. Grant opened the door. Her face went from a frown to a wide smile. “I knew you'd come. I just knew it.”

“The spirits are restless,” he informed her. “It may have nothing to do with your daughter.”

“Oh, but it does,” Grant insisted, twisting her hands together in excitement. “Come, you'll want to see her room. It's where it happened.”

“I want to see the rest of the house first,” he said, getting a frown from both of the women. He hadn't come here to see if spirits would talk to him, and while seeing a crime scene always helped, he wanted to know what the security was like, how easy it would have been for someone to get in.

“Did my daughter tell you to do this?”

“I don't speak to your daughter. That's not how this works,” he said, making sure to catch the robe on the step, giving him time to look closer at the carpeting as he tugged on it. “You make everyone take off their shoes entering the house.”

“Yes, why?”

“Does everyone obey this rule?”

“Well, I didn't make you take them off, but most people do, even guests.”

“Your daughter never disobeyed?”

“No. She actually hated those heels she wore, but she thought she needed them to be taller. She was always kicking them off first thing she got inside the door.”

“She never walked through mud?”

“Oh, no. Not if she could help it.”

He turned away from the stairs, wanting to see where they kept the chemicals in this house. He eyed the sink in the kitchen. “You have a leaky faucet.”

“I do not,” Mrs. Grant said, rushing over to open the cupboard, pulling out all the chemicals and peering into the darkness. She sat back with a frown. “How did you know? Oh, listen to me. Why am I asking that?”

“I'd like to know,” Enid muttered under her breath.

Lucky guess. The age of the house made it almost a given it would have a few bad pipes, and even if he had been wrong, he could have made a convincing lie for why the psychic thought there was one when there wasn't.

Still, that proved his point. Anyone could have had easy access to that drain cleaner as long as they were in the house. Pour the drink in the kitchen, just like that. A very familiar moment. He sometimes wondered what it would have been like if he'd actually called Veronica back. If he'd told her it was poison, just how different would things be now?

He refused to think about that now. He'd done enough thinking after the bomb.

“Do you want to see her room now?”

He did, but he figured on being stubborn and keeping it for last. “She did laundry that day.”

Mrs. Grant stared at him. “Yes, she did. Does that matter?”

It might. “Her bed was made.”

“She must have wanted to read on it or something. She wasn't the kind of person that made her bed every morning. That just wasn't her.”

That, or her killer had spent the night with her. It would explain plenty. The lack of forced entry, the dirt tracked up the stairs, the girl drinking poison—if she'd trusted her killer, she'd do what he said without question.

Veronica had trusted him once.

“Judas? Are the spirits too loud?”

He turned back to face Enid. “Show me the bedroom.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JD and his assistant come up with a theory, and Veronica learns of a new player involved in the case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fear everything I pictured for this part was so much better in my head than when I wrote it down. Especially the last scene. That one really didn't want to get written and I wanted it perfect, and it isn't.

* * *

He had seen this before. Heather Chandler's bedroom remained burned in his memory, that image clear in his head. He could never forget what it looked like, and certainly not what she'd looked like. So spoiled. So pompous. She was egotistical even in her sleep, and he'd been glad to see her go. Amused, too, when she said corn nuts as her final words. That had been funny, and at the time, he hadn't thought much of her dying.

The world was supposed to be a better place without Heather Chandler.

Only Veronica had been right. Killing her hadn't changed anything. Part of that was his fault, since he'd been the one to prompt Heather Duke into her new role as megabitch, but he'd thought he needed her, especially after he lost Veronica. Heather Duke seemed like the way he would get Veronica back. She'd need him. She'd want to kill Duke, and it would be a good way of turning her back to his side.

It hadn't worked.

“Judas?”

He stepped forward, looking at Betsy Grant's dressing table. She had all the makeup and beauty products a teen Barbie needed, all in a neat little row. 

“She was sitting here when she got the cup,” he said, not entirely sure why he thought that was true. She'd fallen through the table a few steps away. Some of the glass was still in the carpet even though most of it had been vacuumed away. “And she stood, and she took a sip, and she fell.”

“You can see this?” Mrs. Grant asked, still convinced he was real.

He was guessing, but he could picture it all the same. She'd been brushing her hair, happy and content after the night before with her new boyfriend, and he'd given her the cup. She rose to kiss him, took a sip, trusting him, and died.

He felt sure this was how it had happened, but he could not prove anything, not with his readings in psychology books and his amateur detective efforts.

“Do you know why she did it?”

He turned toward Mrs. Grant. “I told you. I don't speak to your daughter. That is not how this works. You may never have the answer you want.”

“You saw how she died, though.”

He hadn't seen it, but he was rather good at picturing this sort of thing. It wasn't even the fact that he'd been there to watch Heather Chandler die with her immortal last words. It was his ability to plan elaborate murders and get away with them. The killing had stopped, as he told Veronica, but he had never quite lost the planning.

He wasn't well-adjusted. Most people would say he was a sociopath. He wasn't. Sociopaths were incapable of love, and while Veronica would argue that fit him, he had loved her. He'd loved his mother before her—different kind of love, but still love.

He just had a few bent and broken pieces in his moral fiber, screws loose, as it were.

“I saw what could have happened,” he corrected, turning to Enid. “We need to go.”

* * *

“Damn it.”

Veronica looked up from her desk, frowning at Richards. He wasn't prone to loud outbursts. He was one of those agents who had the political part of the job down and always seemed calm and in control. Next to him, she always felt like a sloppy mess, but she was one. She had stumbled her way through graduation and college, getting degrees and making her parents feel like she'd overcome the worst. She'd chosen the FBI afterward, knowing that she needed some way of paying back the wrong she'd done. She'd thought she could do good here.

She just unraveled even more as time went on. That was how guilt worked. It ate and ate at you until there was nothing left, and she was there again long, these murders pushing her over the edge.

“What's wrong?”

“One of the families hired a damned psychic,” Richards answered. “A psychic. We just release the report, and already the psychos are coming out of the woodwork.”

“I thought the bureau did work with some who claimed to be psychics,” Veronica said. She'd never done it herself. She didn't know if they'd see the ghosts that hung around her, the guilt. She only saw them in dreams, but dreams were enough. Too much, even. She could still remember every part of that dream where she and JD killed Heather Duke and then Heather Chandler came back to haunt her.

“We do, but this guy isn't one of ours. He's some carnival sideshow. Wears a damned wizard robe or something like that.”

Veronica almost laughed. That sounded hilarious, though it shouldn't be funny. “Many families turn to psychics in grief. For the parents, it makes sense. There wasn't a note, but they need to understand. They'd look for any way possible of doing that.”

“I know that, but this guy is on the news, and we're being asked about him and if he's helping us on the case. The grieving mother says this guy knows more than we do.”

“We _did_ lie to her, held back that it wasn't a suicide.”

“Are you defending her?” Richards demanded. “Why aren't you in therapy?”

“My appointment is in fifteen minutes, but I hate that waiting room, so I chose to wait here. This is still my desk, isn't it?”

“Yes, for now.”

Veronica leaned across the desk. “Maybe you should look into that psychic. Find out his background, who he is, if he has a record—”

“Are you trying to tell me my job?”

“It's what I'd be doing if I wasn't on desk and therapy duty.”

“We already looked him up.”

“And?” Veronica was curious. She wanted to know. If they had something on this guy, they'd have used it by now, but even if they didn't, anyone involved in the case had to be checked out. This guy could be genuine, a fraud, or even the killer.

“And you don't get any information on him because you're on leave until they tell me you're fit for duty,” Richards said. “Now go to your appointment.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Veronica muttered, grabbing her purse and heading toward the elevator. She let the doors close behind her as she took out her phone. She'd have the name of that psychic before she was done faking her way through therapy. 

* * *

“Tell me you have a theory,” Enid said, shutting the door behind her, making sure the sign was set to closed. She went to her desk and started putting the supplies from the bag away, filing each part on the shelves and in drawers.

He didn't bother watching her for more than a minute, going back into his own office. He shed the heavy robe, dropping it on the floor. It was past time to take it to the cleaners again, and he was sick of the damned thing. He'd spent hours in it, roasting as he walked through the Grant house looking for evidence the police had overlooked and putting his observations together with what he knew of the past. This one was almost easier than any other case he'd worked in years, and yet it wasn't. His insight into the criminal mind wasn't limited to his own, but he'd done enough analysis of himself, and what he saw there would only get in the way.

He hadn't killed that girl, and she hadn't died for the same reasons as Heather Chandler.

Whoever was copying her death didn't know the truth of it.

“What are you, a child?” Enid asked, coming into the room and grabbing the robe off the floor. “You could at least put it on the chair when you're sick of it.”

“Take it to the dry cleaners later.” 

She nodded, gathering it up in her arms. She didn't leave, looking over at him. “Come on, Jay. I've been working with you long enough to know when you've got something, and I know you've got something. Admit it.”

“I have a theory,” he said, smiling as he messed with his hair, sending it every which way. Freedom felt good.

“I knew it,” Enid said, smiling in triumph. She clapped her hands together, almost ready to throw the robe back on the floor. “Well? Are you going to tell me or not?”

“Not,” he said with a grin of his own. He pulled off his t-shirt and threw it without looking, knowing he hit her with it when she let out a sort of squeak. 

“Don't be an ass,” she said. “Honestly. You wonder why I see you as a brother. You are so obnoxious. Tell me the theory.”

He pulled on a dark shirt, buttoning it up and watching her. She never turned away, never stared at the remaining scars. He'd used Bud's money to make most of them disappear, but some of them weren't as bad. Some of them were necessary. Some of them were reminders.

He couldn't forget why he'd chosen this path, twisted as it was.

“Theory. Now.”

“You don't give the orders,” he reminded her. “If I feel like telling you, I will.”

“You need me to prove whatever theory it is you have, so you have to tell me sometime,” Enid said. “At least tell me what you need. You know I'll get it.”

“Dry cleaner.”

“You're such a jerk.”

He had drawn out telling her as much as was amusing. He didn't want to let her win, he never let Enid win, but she had a point about him needing her help to find the proof he needed.

“I think Betsy Grant was killed by a lover. Someone she trusted, someone who was there, in that room, the entire night.”

“She was alone according to her mother and the police.”

“You're still a virgin, aren't you, Niddie?”

“Excuse me?”

“You're far too innocent,” he muttered, sitting down in his chair. “Parents don't know half the stuff their teenagers get up to, including when boyfriends or girlfriends stay the night. The fact that you don't know that firsthand—”

“It doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means,” she snapped, and it so did, but he wouldn't bother trying to argue that with her again. “Her mother and everyone else said she wasn't dating anyone. Where did this lover come from?”

“I think you can start by looking at the internet.”

“The police would have gone over her social media accounts, her emails, and her phone.”

“This was a romance no one knew about,” he reminded her. “It was one no one was supposed to know about. This person—I want to say this man, but I can't prove that yet—this person entered her life with every intention of killing her when he left it. He never wanted anyone to know he was ever there. The easiest way to get away with killing someone? Never, ever, let anyone realize you knew them. They have no reason to look for you.”

“Because people are usually killed by someone they know.”

“Yes.”

“And you expect me to work some kind of miracle and find this person that no one else knows about and the police didn't see any trace of?”

“Yes.”

“I really hate you.”

He smiled at her. “I know. Now go and find me a killer.”

* * *

Veronica looked over the reports she'd gotten, shaking her head. She knew she was crazy, didn't need the bureau's therapist to tell her that, but anyone who hired this guy needed serious help. First, the name. Judas Dane. That should have been a clue, should have warned everyone off, but somehow that wasn't enough, not even when they saw him.

She picked up the blurry picture of the guy in his robe. He looked like something out of a badly made fantasy movie, more like a school play than a professional production. How did anyone take this guy seriously?

Even Richards thinking he was a threat was a laugh, though she figured he was more concerned with how bad the bureau would look with word of parents seeking out advice from this quack. This was insane.

Still, there was an unsettling bit of evidence that this guy wasn't just a sideshow freak. He'd found at least five bodies, confirmed by the local department or the feds, and supposedly he'd located other missing persons. There was also a number of anonymous tips that the department had flagged, almost sure they were made by him since the number traced back to a payphone nearby or a burner phone pinging off a close cell tower.

She wanted to know what this guy knew, and she didn't know that she had much other choice if she wanted to do anything remotely related to the case. Richards wanted her at home or at best, at her desk, and she wasn't going to accept that. She knew that someone was killing girls in imitation of Heather Chandler's death, and she had to find them.

She couldn't let more people die for something she'd done.

She frowned, looking out of the window as she saw a woman struggling with a big thing of black fabric wrapped in plastic. A dry cleaner? The mundane nature of that seemed wrong, but then again, she had to wonder about this woman. Could it be the psychic was actually a woman? He wasn't that tall in any of the pictures of him, though he was a bit camera shy, too.

She opened the door and started across the street. She needed to know what was going on here, and that meant meeting this psychic.

She went up to the door and pulled on it, ignoring the closed sign. A bell jingled, and she looked up at it with a frown.

“He's not seeing anyone today,” the woman she'd seen earlier said. “Um... the spirits aren't talking right now.”

“Is that so?” Veronica asked, folding her arms over her chest. “Well, I'm not leaving until I speak to him. Maybe the spirits will tell him that.”

The woman grimaced.

“Or does he already know?”

“What?”

“She thinks you're the one that dresses up in the funny robes and talks to ghosts,” another voice said, full of amusement but chilling her to the core.

“Oh, God,” the woman said. “I wouldn't put that thing on if you paid me, and half the time, you don't. I swear I don't know why I still work for you. Especially after you made me get your dry cleaning after I'd been up all night.”

“I only suggested you get it when you said you were going for coffee,” he said, giving her a smile that Veronica knew all too well. She used to love that smile. She used to love him. “You're the one that took it as an order.”

“Bastard.”

“I see you haven't changed much,” she whispered, feeling a bit sick. This wasn't possible. He was dead. There was no way he had survived the bombing.

“Oh, you'd be surprised,” he said, leaning against the door frame.

“How?” She couldn't get anything else out, but that was enough. It covered so many possibilities. How did he survive? How was this possible? How did she wake up from this dream or whatever the hell it was? “Why?”

“I told you I was innocent.”

“You're not.”

“Well, not completely. We both know what happened back then,” he said, his eyes never leaving her. “I'm not saying I didn't do that. You're the one who denies what she did. I know what I did. I also know what I didn't do, and I didn't kill those girls.”

Veronica put a hand to her head. “This isn't possible. You're dead. You couldn't have survived the bomb. You even told me that the last time I hallucinated you.”

“No, I told you to think about how I could have survived,” he corrected. “You still miss the point so easily, darling.”

He took a step forward, and she backed up. “Don't. Don't move. Don't talk. Don't—you're not real. That's not possible, and I need to—I have to get out of here.”

He ignored her words, catching hold of her just before the door. The bells jingled, and she struggled in his hold for a second before the door gave way and she stumbled out into the street. She fell down to the pavement. She didn't understand. This couldn't be happening. He was dead. It wasn't possible.

“I can explain all of this,” JD told her, and she gagged as she looked up at him. “Not just how I survived. I can prove I didn't kill those girls. I might even be able to give you their killer.”

Veronica stared at him, not capable of any speech. Again, he was telling her he was innocent. Again she knew better than to believe him. 

“But you will have to trust me.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica still struggles with doubts about whether or not JD is real and alive. Proving that and his theory about the murders hits a bit of a snag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was having another one of those moments where I was sure I had all the characters all wrong. I rewatched the movie again, thought it would help, and I tried to remind myself that this is a JD that survived the bomb and turned his life around, more or less, and that there's a whole tragic backstory thing that's only barely hinted at in the movie, so he would be different, and so would Veronica because years have gone by, but I had a hard time believing it. I can only hope that once I get into the actual explanation and backstory, it will help.

* * *

Trust him?

Veronica shook her head, unable to believe what she had just heard. JD asking her to trust him. Impossible. He should be dead, and even if he wasn't, he was a killer. He might have said their love was God, but he'd killed any love she had for him when he tried to kill her and blow up their school. He'd tricked her into killing Kurt and Ram, and how could she ever trust him again after something like that? Even if there was some part of her that still loved him, that thought he could be saved, that therapy or something could make him sane again, she couldn't trust him.

“Never again.”

He shook his head. “You disappoint me, Veronica. All these years, and none of your 'friends' turned up dead, did they? No one ever blew up your school. No one hurt you, no one even so much as called and hung up. No one bothered you at all, and yet all you see is one act. You judge every piece from one moment.”

“Excuse me if I happen to think that was a pretty damned big moment,” Veronica said. She caught herself before she told the whole neighborhood about what they'd done. The street seemed deserted, with his run down office the only door not boarded up, but that didn't mean she should spill every detail lying on the sidewalk. “Any one of them was big, but there were more than one. Heather and then Kurt and Ram. When you came to my room. When we fought in the boiler room. When you stood at the bottom of those stairs and blew yourself up. Only you didn't, supposedly, because you're here. You can't be here. You're not alive. I've finally cracked after all these years. Damn it.”

“I'm not dead. You're not hallucinating me.”

Veronica shook her head. “I have to be. That is the only explanation that makes any sense.”

“You haven't even heard mine yet,” JD reminded her, and she grimaced. She couldn't let him tell her. She might end up believing it, and she couldn't afford to believe it.

“I can't listen to you,” Veronica said, forcing herself to her feet. She thought about running for her car and chose not to, thinking it better if she didn't drive just yet. She might kill someone. “It's insane. I'm insane. I used to only be haunted in my dreams, but you're standing right in front of me. Alive. Telling me you didn't kill anyone else. That makes no sense. You were blown up. No way you survived that bomb. It was strapped to your chest, and I'd shot you twice. You're dead.”

“What are you going to do with the rest of your life?”

“It's not like saying what you said that day is going to change anything. I know what I saw. I saw an explosion. I saw you died. So what if you can quote yourself? You're a hallucination. Of course you'd sound like you.”

“Actually, that's not always the case. Plenty of delusions involve loved ones doing us great harm. It's how a jealous man goes from happiness with his wife to murdering her over a text message from the dry cleaner.”

“Don't try and make this sound logical. It isn't logical.”

“You could try applying the Sherlock Holmes method instead,” he offered. “Eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, however implausible, is true. Or something like that. I actually thought Holmes was kind of a dick.”

Veronica tried not to laugh. This wasn't funny. Other than the whole losing her mind, which was kind of funny in the worst possible sort of way. “You're not helping. The impossible is you being alive, so you are just proving it.”

“You did meet Enid, right? I could go get her, since she's bound to be watching us anyway—Enid's very nosy—and have her point out to you that I'm very real, and why the hell would you hallucinate Enid? She's kind of quirky and occasionally amusing, but mostly I keep her around because pissing her off is fun.”

“She's not your current girlfriend slash psychotic killing partner?”

“Enid is, if anything, more innocent than you, and very much not my girlfriend. Sleeping with her would be like... robbing the cradle, and even I'm not that sick.”

“I wasn't exactly legal when we were together.”

“Neither was I, if you'll recall.”

She didn't bother correcting him about consent laws. They'd still been minors at the time, at least in the eyes of the law, since neither of them were eighteen. Maybe if they had been, things would have been different. He might not have been with his father if he was, and maybe that would have made all the difference in the world. He might not have had access to the guns or the explosives, and that could have saved almost everyone. 

Veronica shook her head. “That doesn't excuse any of it.”

“Did you hear me making any excuses?” JD asked, and she was reminded that he wasn't sorry about what he'd done—at least not then. She didn't know what he'd say now. Maybe he still thought that killing all of them was right. “I'm not.”

“You said you were innocent.”

“I may have exaggerated a little, but I didn't kill Betsy Grant or any of the others. Someone is killing others like Heather, but it's not me.”

“Why would I believe you?”

“Enid claims to be able to prove it.”

Veronica no more trusted Enid than she did him. She still wasn't sure what that woman was to JD or if she was real, but she could be his current murderous flame. Veronica wasn't taking her word for anything. “That's not enough.”

“I didn't think it would be.”

“What did you think this would be?” Veronica demanded, wanting to know. Did he think that she would still love him? Take him back and accept everything he said? That she would rejoin him in killing? What did he want? Forgiveness? Or was this all a scam, a way to trick her into letting him close so he could finish the job?

“I don't know what I was thinking,” he admitted. “It's not like I had much of a plan, showing up the way I did. I wanted you to know I wasn't behind the killings. I didn't want you wasting time looking for me when a killer was walking free.”

“That's rich coming from you.”

He smiled. “Well, same to you, darling, but let's not argue that point again. You need to decide if you're going to hear me out or not. If not, you may as well go. All you're doing here is looking deranged. It used to be a cute look on you, but not so much these days.”

“You're not funny.”

He smiled at her. “Again, not going to argue with you. I still think I'm hilarious.”

She shook her head. “What if I arrest you?”

“For what, exactly?”

“Fraud, for starters.”

He laughed. “Go ahead and try, but I picked all of this for a very good reason. The office, the robe, the schtick. People can't prove or disprove psychics, right? You don't need degrees or licenses or anything that would ever make anyone look into your past. The world expects a psychic to be a fraud, and the people who come through that door expecting something legitimate are kidding themselves. I put on a ridiculous robe and I say something about spirits and people believe it because they want to, all evidence to the contrary.”

“Exactly. Fraud.”

“Except I don't make any money off of it. Check the books. There's no great fortune in this con. Just a challenge that keeps me from going off the almost straight and narrow.”

“You know nothing of the straight and narrow.”

“I knew, waking up from that explosion that should have killed me, that I had a few choices. I could go on as I had, or I could answer my own question. Now that I was dead, what did I do with my life? And the answer was... whatever the hell I felt like doing.”

“Unbelievable.”

He shrugged. “You still wouldn't have liked me in the beginning, but once I decided I was going to change, I did research into why I was the way I was, and you know what I found out?”

“That you were completely screwed up?”

“That, and a few other things. I learned that I understood that part of the brain that just goes boom and right off center, and I knew things about people, knew things they didn't know about themselves, and I'm not going to lie, that was a power trip, and it could have gone very badly. Could have.” He shook whatever memory he'd just had off and looked at her. “I knew I was never going to be good. It's not me. I'm not that person, that one you thought I was and wanted me to be. I got screwed up, and I couldn't come back from it. Not completely. I could always see the moments where I would go off course, and I almost took them.”

“You said you didn't kill anyone.”

“Not since Sherwood, but that doesn't mean I don't still think about it.”

“God, JD. You are such a mess.”

“And yet you're the one in therapy.”

“Jerk.”

He nodded, and then just turned and walked away from her, going back inside the building. Veronica stared after him, trying to decide if she had seen him, if any of this was real. She didn't know what to think. Was any of what had just happened real? Or was she just going completely insane?

* * *

He heard the bell jingle behind him, wishing he still carried a gun and could shoot the damned thing. He didn't know what he thought he'd get in any conversation with Veronica—not an admission she still loved him, not forgiveness, not any kind of understanding, they were too far past that—but he did want her to stop thinking he was a hallucination. It might have been funny once, and he might have used it in the early days when he was still so hung up on her and his failure that he'd done a bit of stalking, but that was over. He'd shown himself to her for one purpose, and one purpose only.

He wanted her to know he hadn't killed those girls.

He supposed he could have stuck to the sidelines, proved it the way he proved every other case he'd taken on as Judas Dane. He should have done that. Then Veronica would still think he was dead, and life would go on as it had before.

“I was so distracted by this case I didn't even ask you about your friend.”

“She's not a friend, Enid,” he said, crossing over to her desk. “What have you got for me?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

She winced. “Okay, so there's this part of me that's saying I've been awake for thirty-six hours and I'm just missing something, and there's a part of me that still can't believe I picked up your dry cleaning and the rest of me is starting to think this guy is so good at not leaving a trace that he has to be a ghost.”

“Not what we're going for here. We need someone real.”

“Is that because you're not real?”

He rolled his eyes. “Nice of you to pick up on only that part of the conversation.”

Enid shrugged. “So sue me. I'm only kind of awake at the moment, and I'm barely functioning. I blame all of this on you, by the way.”

He shrugged, not caring much about that. He heard the bells chime and looked back to see Veronica coming back inside. He waited, but she didn't say anything or move, so he turned back to Enid. 

“You said this person covered his tracks. Meaning we're looking for someone who's good with computers. Someone like you.”

“Are you accusing me now?”

“Should I?”

She rolled her eyes. “No. Don't be an ass. Well, more of an ass. Speaking of... No one introduced us before. I'm Enid. His assistant.”

“Oh, so she _is_ your partner in crime.”

“Only in fraud, and we already had that conversation,” he said. Enid gave him a look, and he shook his head, warning her off. She shouldn't say anything about the hacking she did, or any of the other morally questionable things she'd done to help him in the past. “And since you're going to ask, Enid, this is Veronica Sawyer—”

“Hanson.”

“Right. I almost forgot. You married that lawyer, didn't you?”

Veronica's expression darkened, but she said nothing. He decided not to push that one. He didn't want to think about her marriage anyway.

“Veronica's an agent.”

Enid frowned. “You're working with the feds now? Like officially?”

“No.” He didn't think that Veronica believed he was alive, and even if she did, she wouldn't let him work with her, though admittedly he thought he'd like that. Hell, it would be funny, him in his ridiculous robe going around at her side, pissing her off every chance he got.

He might even get tempted to flirt with her again.

“Really? It would be kind of nice if you were legitimate for once.”

“Yeah, not going to happen with Ronnie over there. Not only does she not trust me, she can't get past the fact that I'm not dead.” He shrugged. “She'll stop staring eventually. Come with me. You can tell me what this guy would need to know to cover his tracks, I'll pretend I understand your technobabble, and then you can pretend you understand the psychobabble I throw at you right before you pass out.”

“Sounds good.”

“What are you talking about?” Veronica asked. “What tracks? Are you—you're a fake psychic. What are you doing?”

“You know how that television show had that whole 'fake psychic, real detective' tagline? That's so him. This guy is so good at figuring out the weirdo brain he can make people believe he actually is psychic. He's brilliant.”

Veronica gave him a look.

“Niddie over here likes cheap carnival tricks. And had a huge crush on Harry Potter. Or was that Justin Bieber?”

“I hate you,” Enid muttered. “And I do not like Bieber. Say that again, and I am so going to spike your next coffee with laxatives or something.”

“Which is why we keep tea on hand,” he said, smiling back at her. She groaned. “That, and it fits with the mystic act.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I'll think of something better when I haven't been up for days straight looking for a figment of your imagination. I mean, it sounds good, it seems like a possibility, but there is no trace of anyone in her life that isn't already accounted for. Either he's insanely good at covering his tracks or he doesn't exist at all.”

Veronica frowned. “You think a boyfriend did this?”

“A lover. Someone she trusted. Not a friend, though I know friends do stay overnight. Something just says lover to me. Not sure if it's the fact that someone did Betsy's sheets on the day she died or if there's some unconscious thing triggering that sense or if I just want it to be that because it's something else that points towards my innocence.”

“Having an older boyfriend would be a reason to hide the relationship,” Enid said. “Though, seriously, who would ever date you?”

He couldn't help laughing at that. “You want to help her out there, Ronnie?”

“Hell, no.”

* * *

Veronica had gone completely insane. Not only was she still with JD and his assistant—probable girlfriend despite all the denials—but she was listening to them discuss the murders like she actually didn't think it was him. If he was alive, he had to be the killer. She couldn't trust him. And she still had no explanation for how he survived.

Why was it her brain never worked when it came to JD?

“Oooh, coffee,” Enid said, taking hold of the mug and looking like she was getting high off the fumes. “I love coffee.”

“Maybe a little too much,” Veronica muttered. She saw JD smirking, and she had to force herself not to pick up her knife and stab him with it.

Did Enid make JD real and alive? What did that even mean for her? If JD was alive, how was that possible, and how was she supposed to deal with him alive? She'd only survived this long knowing that his murderous ways had ended with that bomb. He said that he'd stopped, but she only had his word for that, and he couldn't be trusted. He'd proved that.

“You'll have to excuse Veronica. High school did its best to turn her into a megabitch. She was learning from the best of them when we met,” JD said. “And you can stop trying to hide the fact that you're googling her on your phone. Hand it over.”

“I hate when you do that,” Enid muttered, shoving her phone at him. She turned to Veronica. “What is his real name? Because I know it's not Judas.”

“It may as well be,” Veronica muttered. She turned her water glass around in her hand. “You don't have any proof that there was anyone else in the house or anyone else in her life. This is just a theory.”

“Admittedly, in hindsight, I should have waited until I did to go see you. I didn't think that part through enough.”

“I keep trying to tell you I can prove it. We were working at the time. We found two missing people, proved someone had abused a man and faked a change to his will, stopped someone from driving someone else insane, and also broke up a human trafficking ring,” Enid said, leaning her head against the window. “I have files. I have proof. He's innocent. I work for a fraud, not a monster.”

“I think you might change your mind about that if you knew what I knew.”

Enid flipped her off and curled up against the side of the booth.

Veronica felt something touch her hand and looked down to see a piece of paper in front of her. _If you want that explanation, it has to be in private. No Enid. No diner full of customers. Just you and me. You can pick the place, but we are not having that conversation in front of anyone else._

She looked over at JD. He nodded to the note.

She was going to regret this. “Fine. Let's talk.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica struggles to accept even a part of JD's explanation, and he gets frustrated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was, I admit, very difficult to find a believable way where the movie ended differently and yet everyone still thought JD was dead. I'm not even sure it does work, as it's well out of my level of expertise, and I think it's already clear I'm not good at researching things. Still, it seemed to fit with the ideas I was going with for JD's backstory, so I decided to use it.
> 
> And I've gone back and fixed a few things I had wrong or where the site ate part of my text because I added italics and I didn't notice. It should also be obvious that I don't work with a beta, though I'm usually better at typos, at least.
> 
> I owe much to comments by Blueinkedfrost that pointed out said mistakes so I could fix them and keeping me motivated to write on this one even after such embarrassing mistakes.

* * *

Veronica knew she was insane. She was alone, with JD, in a car. Sure, she'd done the only smart thing and frisked him before letting him get in the car, and that smirk he'd had on his face hadn't gone away yet, suggesting he'd enjoyed it even if he shouldn't have and that was just sick, but he didn't say anything and didn't have anything on him, so she got in and drove.

She wasn't about to be alone with him in his building, even if she figured that was what he wanted, and she wasn't going for any kind of walk, either. She wouldn't be lured into whatever passed for his home these days—she was afraid to see that after seeing his office, and she wasn't bringing him into her house.

“How paranoid are you?” JD asked, and she looked over at him. He shrugged. “Just wondering if they would have bugged your car. I'm thinking they might have since you're on leave.”

“How'd you hear about that?”

He gave her a bit of a smile. “I'm psychic, remember?”

“You're an ass.”

He shrugged. “All I'm saying is that if I had your job, I'd be a lot more careful about what I said anywhere, and if you were to make the mistake of telling anyone about your dead boyfriend being the serial killer you're hunting now, this could be very bad for you.”

Veronica sighed, pulling over and parking the car. She looked out, seeing kids and dogs playing in the park next to them. This was no better. “There's nowhere we'd agree on to talk. This is too public, your place is too... you. You could do anything there if I was stupid enough to go in there. And my place—no. I'm not letting you in there.”

“What, can't bear the thought of explaining me to your husband?”

“If you know I'm on leave, you know that he's been gone for a long time now,” she snapped. “And so would a damned hallucination, which is what you have to be to know about the leave. God, this is insane. Why did I ever think I could do this?”

“Are you asking about talking to me or being an agent in the first place? I admit, it's not what I pictured for you, but then I should have because I always did like picturing you with a gun,” JD said, and she looked over at him in horror, feeling sick at the memory of what she'd done to Kurt. “Look, I told you—I'm not good. I'm damaged, and my head's never been right.”

That was for damned sure. “You owe me an explanation.”

He nodded. “I do.”

“And?”

“And I need a damned cigarette,” he muttered, yanking on the door handle and getting out of the car. She swore, not wanting to follow him, but if she didn't, how would she shut him up? How did she make that moment of him protesting his innocence go away? How did she stop seeing him?

She supposed she could go back to the shrink and ask for drugs, but she didn't want drugs. She'd done that before, and she wasn't going back to it. That was no way to live, even if it was nice to sleep through the night and sometimes being numb seemed easier.

“Wait,” she said, jogging up to his side. “I thought you were going to smoke, not run off. What is this? You say you'll tell me, but you run? That's not just annoying, it's like... hell, like you're not real. You keep disappearing.”

JD leaned back against the tree. “I quit, you know.”

“Really?”

He shrugged. “I kind of... lost my taste for it.”

“You're lying. You wouldn't have quit by choice. It was part of your cool kid act.”

“Do you have any idea how long it took me to recover from being shot and blown up?” JD asked, shaking his head. “All the while, that bastard never let me light up. By the time I could again, it wasn't the same. I really did lose the taste for it.”

Veronica frowned. “What are you talking about? Who didn't let you smoke? Your doctor?”

He gave her a look filled with scorn. “You still aren't thinking it through. You're not even trying. Why would you think I'd do a damned thing the doctors said? I didn't care about living anymore. You know that. I lost you, I couldn't blow up the school, and I figured I've been shot, so why not go out with a bit of style? The bomb was fitting. It was a clean slate.”

“But you didn't die.”

“Obviously.”

She shook her head. “If you didn't want to live, why are you here? Why bother surviving the bomb? Which, by the way, still doesn't make sense. That thing was strapped to you. You couldn't have survived it.”

“Not alone, no.”

She frowned. “What, now you're going to claim you were working with someone? It's not like it was Enid. She still thinks there's good in you and she would have been a child at the time—if she was even born.”

“Come on, Veronica. You're smarter than this. Think about it. Who the hell did I know at that school besides you? Who did I know in that town besides you? Who gave you the creeps so bad you wouldn't even stay for dinner? Yeah, that's it. There's the look. The lightbulb switched on at last.”

“Big Bud?” Veronica whispered. “Your father was a part of this?”

“Two things about Big Bud,” JD said. “One—he might have been a criminal, but he knew how to get away with it. You can bet your pretty little ass he wasn't about to let his son jeopardize that. I made the mistake of stealing explosives the day before he did inventory, so he figured out what I was up to, and he put a stop to it.”

Veronica didn't bother correcting that. She'd done the stopping, not Big Bud. She hadn't even seen him there, and she should have. “Right. And what's the second thing?”

“What's the point?” JD countered. “You don't believe me.”

“I can't afford to believe you,” Veronica told him. “If you're a hallucination, then I really have lost it, and I can't be listening to you. And even if you're telling me the truth, how did Big Bud save you? You had a bomb strapped to your chest. I saw it explode.”

“The other thing about Big Bud... he really liked explosions. Got off on them, even.”

That was disgusting, but Veronica wasn't surprised, not from what she'd seen of JD's father. He'd had creep written on him from the moment he walked in the room, and the weird conversation JD had with him only made it worse. The role reversal was weird, but there was this undercurrent to their words that was unsettling. She felt like none of it was real, that they were saying other things in some kind of twisted code, and she'd wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.

“So Big Bud blew something up and made it look like you'd died there?”

“You never did find a body, did you?”

“I left that to the police.”

“Can't say I blame you. I wouldn't have wanted to go looking for body parts, either.”

“I don't believe you.” 

“What you saw explode was his doing. He threw a grenade in front of me and dragged me out of there,” JD said. “Made me tell him about the thermals and losing my damned finger.”

Veronica looked at his hand. God, that had to be a sign none of this was real. JD had all of his fingers on both hands. “No. No, this isn't real. It's not possible.”

He looked down at his hand and sighed. “Damn it. I should have known you wouldn't listen. Forget it. I'm not going to explain anything else. It's not worth it.”

She watched him walk away, not sure what to think or feel about any of this. It couldn't be real. It wasn't possible, and yet... she wanted Big Bud to be the bad guy, wanted to believe there was something there that excused JD's behavior, but even if there had been abuse, as she'd sometimes wondered about over the years, why would he have saved JD?

No, JD died. That was the only thing that made sense.

* * *

“Coffee? I promise there's no laxatives in it.”

He looked over at Enid, frowning. “What are you doing here? You're supposed to be sleeping.”

“I did. For hours. In case you missed it, it's dark out and creepy as hell,” she said, holding out the cup to him. “Where have you been? I have been calling my phone for hours trying to find you. I even tried that stupid find my phone app, but you somehow shut it off.”

“Remind me to buy you a new phone.”

“Seriously?”

He shrugged. He'd dropped it out of Veronica's window and watched the car behind them crush it without remorse. He didn't know why he'd bothered—Enid could have gotten everything she needed about Veronica by now, and that would eventually lead to him, since he'd made the mistake of saying they dated and mentioning high school.

“I should hate you. I honestly don't know why I don't most days,” Enid muttered. “That's usually when you do something awesome like reunite a missing person with their family or catch a killer. It's kind of hard to stay mad at you when you do that.”

“I could tell you things that would make you hate me forever.”

“Like whatever you wanted to discuss with her without me?” Enid asked. “Question—are you still in love with her? Because I watch you with her, and you have never looked at anyone like you look at her. It's... strange. A bit... unsettling.”

“Our love was God,” he muttered, shaking his head. “And yes, the answer to your next question—I'm an atheist.”

Enid shook her head, looking torn between laughter and disgust. “Okay, fine, I don't actually need to know because your sex life is something I've never wanted to contemplate. I just... I was worried about you.”

“Right.”

“And I should be because you're talking the way you do when you're too late and some sicko kills another kid or something. What did that woman do to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar. And since you're a fraud for a living, when you're lying badly, it's not only insulting, it's scary as hell. What happened?”

“She wanted the truth and refused to see it. Story of my life, really,” JD muttered. He shook his head. “What did you find?”

“I dug deeper into Betsy's web browsing history. She was using private windows on her computer, so her browser didn't keep records of it, but her internet provider does, and while they're not easy to crack, I'm determined... and good, even if I'm saying so myself,” Enid said, and then she flushed red, ruining her moment. “I managed to get a bit of the logs her provider had. They'd flagged her account for possible violations.”

“Illegal downloads?”

“Yup. She was after an anime that hasn't been released in the states yet. So she'd been on a few reddits looking for it, and that, I think, is where she found our guy.”

“Anime?”

“It's not just for 'geeks.' Plenty of people like anime, even popular kids like this girl,” Enid said. “I have been working on getting details on this reddit account, but it looks like he was using a throwaway.”

“A what?”

“I told you this before, I know I have,” Enid told him. “It's also self-explanatory. A throwaway is an account made to be 'thrown away.' They make it for maybe one post, put it up, and then never acknowledge it again. This guy used it to communicate with her. He deleted his emails and calls if he made them, but he didn't delete the original reddit thread where they met.”

“Still not proof,” JD said. “They'll argue that not only did you break the law by hacking, you also can't prove that throwaway had anything to do with the girl's death.”

“Not for Betsy, but he might not have been so careful before, and if he used anime to get close to her, he might have done it more than once,” Enid said. She yawned. “I was going to do more looking around in the community, see what I could find in the fan area... conventions or conversations that might tie back to the other girls.”

“Hacking everyone, I see.”

“Well, I wanted to hack you—”

“Can't. You do all the internet related stuff for me.”

“And so I was going to look up your girlfriend—”

“Not my girlfriend.”

“—but she's a federal agent—”

“So you chickened out.”

“Maybe. A little.”

He shook his head. She was ridiculous sometimes. She hacked everyone else, and her work on the internet service would get someone's attention. She didn't need to worry about the feds finding her over Veronica. The other stuff she'd done would catch up to her soon enough.

“Did you really die?”

That was a stupid question because she was standing in the same room as him, but then again, Veronica had seen something that convinced her he was dead. Still, it wasn't enough. She'd believed it because she wanted to, same with everyone else. The psycho trench coat kid with the gun had blown himself up, leaving nothing but a crater in front of the school.

Except he hadn't.

“No, I just wished I did.”

* * *

_The hand over his mouth came out of nowhere, and he couldn't see through the smoke, flailing helplessly as he was dragged backward. His wounds burned, not just the actual burns but the bullet holes. He felt like he was dying, but he should already have been dead._

_He looked down at the timer. It had stopped again. Impossible, but the lights were blinking even as he was pulled backward. He didn't understand. He was done. He'd decided to end it. No more moving around. No more schools full of the same jerks. No more thinking someone loved him and being horribly wrong about it. He'd lost Veronica, the only person who'd seemed to give a damn about him after his mother died. He couldn't get her back, and he couldn't let her turn him in, and he'd almost killed her so she'd never forgive him even if he did live and end all of this._

_The only thing left was death, but someone had stopped him, had taken that from him._

_He wasn't all that surprised to find out who it was._

_“Where the hell are they, Dad?” his father hissed in his ear. “Where are the thermals?”_

_He tried to reach for the bomb, to turn it on and end both of them, but his father took hold of his bad hand, squeezing it. He screamed against the hand, the pain making him weak enough to stumble. His father dragged him back up against him._

_“Don't think we won't have a long talk about this,” his father promised, the words making JD sick. That wouldn't be a talk. It would hurt. It always did. “You know what happens when you do stupid shit like this, and you're not getting out of it by dying. I'm not letting you destroy me. Tell me where the thermals are.”_

_“The gym. On the bleachers,” JD answered when the hand came off his mouth. Maybe if his father left, he'd bleed out here and die. Or he could fix the bomb and end it anyway. He was tired, and he wanted it over. He didn't want his father to win again._

_“And this?” his father asked, lifting up his hand. “What is this?”_

_“My hand, jackass.”_

_Big Bud hit him right across the face. “Don't lie to me. Don't get smart with me. You know how this will end. You know how it always ends. Answer me, or I'll go back and get that girl of yours. You know what I'll do to her, don't you?”_

_JD turned his head away, not wanting to look at his father. “Kill her. I don't care. She shot me.”_

_“You're lying,” his father said, touching JD's cheek. “You're such a terrible liar. You still care about her. Just like you cared about that dog of yours or that boy you thought you could be friends with when I told you—you don't get friends. You don't get love. You get me. Only me.”_

_JD shuddered, trying to pull himself free. “Just let me die. You hate me anyway.”_

_Big Bud pushed a finger into the wound on JD's side, and he howled in pain only to have his father cover his mouth again. “Tell me about your hand. Now.”_

_JD thought he was going to pass out before he said anything, but he spoke when his father let go again. “She... shot off my finger... might not be anything left of it.”_

_“Nice taste in women you've got there, son.”_

_“Go to hell.”_

_“Not without my boy,” Big Bud told him, ripping off the bomb and shoving him into the van. “I'm going to clean up your mess, and when I get back, we'll have that talk of ours.”_

_JD curled up against himself, hoping Veronica's bullets killed him before then._

* * *

The building hadn't disappeared.

It was still standing, and the lights were on.

If Veronica thought going back would prove she was hallucinating and give her the last push she needed but didn't want to go back on the drugs, she was wrong. It looked like Judas Dane, psychic, was putting in late hours tonight.

This was insane. She had to stop saying it, but it was. She was. She couldn't be seeing JD because he was dead, and she couldn't trust him, even if him saying his father wouldn't have let his death ruin him made sense.

She'd never heard anything about them finding the thermals. And no one saw JD as the homicidal maniac he had been, just the troubled kid who'd committed suicide. They had never asked her about the boiler room or anything in the gym.

Someone had gotten rid of the thermals. She'd always assumed the school had covered it up or something, not wanting the students and parents to know how close everyone had come to death. She'd never thought of anyone helping JD. She knew he had no one else.

No one but his father.

Could that sicko have been involved all along? He had given her creep vibes from the beginning, and that look on his face when he watched that explosion... She shuddered. JD's words about his father getting off on them made her sick all over again.

She pushed the door open and stepped inside, aware of the bells jingling and announcing her presence. JD and Enid looked up from her computer, watching her.

“I didn't think you were coming back,” JD told her. “I thought you had made up your mind this time, that you knew I was dead this time.”

“I tried to,” Veronica said. “The fact that you've got all your fingers should be proof enough of that. I know I shot that off. I wasn't aiming for it, but I hit it. It was a perfect, impossible shot. Only... no one found the thermals. And you're here. And I keep asking myself questions...”

“More about how? A lot of it was what you wanted to believe, what everyone wanted to believe.”

She'd had the debate over the grenade for a while now, and she wasn't sure she'd settled it, since a grenade wouldn't have done that much damage and not killed him, especially not when he was wearing a bomb. He looked almost... untouched by all of it, which made it seem more likely that he wasn't real.

“It got my face pretty good,” he told her. “And as he liked to rub in that same damaged face later, I wasn't half as good at making those things as he was. I knew what to do, I thought I knew how. Turns out I was wrong. It was a dud. There's irony for you, right?”

She shook her head. “I think most people misunderstand irony.”

“Agreed,” Enid said. “Especially that song... it only works if she was being ironic by listing a whole bunch of unironic things in it.”

Veronica shook her head. “You're beautiful.”

“Be nice,” JD said, coming around the desk to face her. “You know it's me you're mad at. You have been all this time.”

She swallowed. She should hate him. She should turn and leave and go to Richards and have him arrest JD not only for what they'd done in the past but these new murders. She didn't move. She didn't make any calls.

“Big Bud killed your mother, didn't he?"


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica pushes for more information about the past, and JD remembers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this goes more into backstory than the current murders, but I did think that some explanation there was necessary. I had to answer the questions Veronica raised, and as much as I don't really think JD would want to share the details, she wouldn't be willing to trust him in the investigation without some explanation, so he does give a bit.
> 
> And while I didn't get too graphic, I don't think, this section does show more of JD's abuse at his father's hands in the flashbacks.
> 
> I'm also a bit worried that this was the story it was easiest to work on after reaching the nanowrimo goal late yesterday and being overcome with depression because while I managed 50,000 words, none of them were good. My brain is not a good place, obviously.

* * *

“Big Bud killed your mother, didn't he?”

“Why would you even ask that?” JD asked, shaking his head. “You don't need to ask. You know. We talked about it before. I suppose it was during that part where you didn't trust me, and you probably didn't believe it, but you know the answer to that already. There's no reason to ask.”

“Yes, there is,” Veronica said. He probably didn't think there was a difference, but there was. “You said that they thought it was an accident, but it wasn't an accident, was it?”

“Your mother was murdered?” Enid asked, staring at him. "Oh, hell, that explains so much, doesn't it? There's like this whole side of you that suddenly makes sense.”

He looked over at her, frowning. “Like hell it does.” 

“It's true, though, isn't it? Someone killed your mother.”

“Or she killed herself,” JD snapped, and Veronica could see how easily that pushed him to the edge. He looked a lot like he had the first time he'd spoken of his mother's death, right before he shot the radio.

“Did she?” Veronica asked. “It's true she knew what Big Bud was doing, that she could have gone in there herself, but that would have meant that she wanted to end it. That's what you thought, right? That she wanted to die. Things were that bad in your house.”

“Are you suggesting it was murder because he drove her to it?” Enid asked. Veronica glanced at her and then turned her attention back to JD. He glared at Enid before coming over and taking Veronica by the arm.

She didn't stop him from pulling her back into the other room, shutting the door behind them. She knew better than to be alone with him like this, but she had a feeling that this conversation would come back to bite her in the ass after he regained some of his composure. He would hate her for saying that much in front of Enid.

“Was it just that, or was it something more than that?” Veronica pressed. “Did you think he just drove her to it... or that he actually did it?”

“The hell difference does it make, Veronica?” JD demanded in a harsh whisper, keeping his voice low even as his anger flowed into the words. “She died. She died, and it was a long time ago. Yeah, it screwed me up. Screwed me over, too, but it doesn't actually matter. You're not here about my mother. You want to know who killed those girls. You want to be sure that I didn't do it, that I'm even real, and we don't need to discuss my mother. She's gone. So fucking what?”

“It makes a big difference if he killed her,” Veronica said. “And if you knew he did.”

“What, because that somehow makes me a part of what he did? Jesus, Veronica, I was twelve years old. I couldn't stop him. I couldn't do anything about it. They said it was an accident, and no one cared after that.”

“I should have,” Veronica said. He was right about that much. She hadn't seen what was right in front of her that day. Both the times she'd interacted with his father, she'd known something was really wrong with Big Bud, but she hadn't paid any attention to that because JD was spiraling out of control and she was feeling guilty as hell. “I should have seen what he was. I was just too caught up in what we were to realize what I was seeing in front of me, what you were telling me.”

“Oh, please. Like you would have thought it excused anything if I'd told you that my dad got away with killing my mom. It didn't, actually. I told you what he did, and you still left.”

“You shot your radio. You scared the hell out of me. I thought I had no choice but to end it.”

“Thought it would be the wake up call I needed, right?” JD snorted, shaking his head. “You were right. I was too far gone. I had myself convinced you were the other half of me, the one that understood all of it, and together we were everything. Only I lost you, and he was right again, and that was it.”

“JD,” Veronica said, refusing to let herself feel guilty for trying to stop him from killing everyone. She couldn't have pulled him back from that edge, and she knew it. No one could have saved JD back then, and she'd done what she had to do to save everyone else. Still, he was here, he was asking her to believe in him, and she knew it would take more than just his words to trust him, but without something, anything to start from, she couldn't wait for him to prove his innocence. She needed the explanation he'd only barely started, the one that she still couldn't make sense of, since she didn't understand why Big Bud had saved him.

She had theories about that, but the theories still raised more questions. Reading between JD's lines said Big Bud was abusive, and he very likely was a killer, not just by accident, but why had JD let him live and killed Heather Chandler, Ram Sweeny, and Kurt Kelly instead? 

“Did your father kill your mother?”

He hesitated, like he wasn't going to answer, but then he finally nodded. “Yes. I mean, even if he didn't force her in that building, he did it when he blew her up, and if she chose it, he drove her to it, but I knew from the beginning it wasn't an accident. She waved at me. She fucking waved. And then, afterward... After what he did to me, I was almost sure of it, that he'd killed her.”

Veronica swore, turning away from him. “You didn't tell anyone.”

“Is that going to condemn me now? You think I should have shouted from the rooftops or something? Maybe I should have gotten a stereo and played it outside windows or something ridiculous like that. Come on, Veronica. What did you expect me to do?”

“You had a gun.”

“You want to know why I didn't just shoot him?”

“Yes.”

* * *

_JD forced himself out of bed, almost falling on the floor when his legs didn't support him. Everything hurt, though that wasn't unusual these days. His dad made sure he hurt all the time. Life was endless pain since his mother died, and JD was tired of hurting._

_He knew what he had to do. He didn't have any other choice._

_He swore he could see his mother waving at him, like she was giving him her blessing or something. He wanted to hate her. She was gone. She was free of all this, and he was still trapped. He couldn't get away from his father._

_He'd tried running. He hadn't gotten far, and they'd dragged him back to his father. He got beat black and blue for that one, but he tried again in the next city. Big Bud had threatened to make it so he never ran again, and JD hadn't believed he could, but that night, his father crushed his foot._

_He couldn't run after that. He couldn't even walk. His father really liked that. It made it easier to hurt him._

_JD had to make it stop. He had to._

_He went to his father's drawer, and he pulled it open, reaching in for the gun he knew Big Bud kept there. His mother had lectured him about gun safety when he was little, and he'd never played with it, never wanted to after she spoke against it._

_He'd wanted to ever since she died. He didn't know if she'd been protecting him all along, if she'd found some way of keeping his father from him, or if his father had turned on him because he was all he had left._

_He took the gun out and pointed it at his father, going toward the bed. He had to do this. He had to kill him. Only then would he be free. He knew that._

_He tried to make himself pull the trigger, but he couldn't. He choked, having trouble breathing. He didn't know what was wrong with him. He knew what he had to do._

_Out of nowhere, his father moved, grabbing hold of his wrist and yanking him toward him. He took the gun and put it to JD's head._

_“You're pathetic, you know that?” Big Bud asked. JD shuddered. “You thought you could do this, did you? You thought you could shoot me?”_

_“Someone has to stop you.”_

_His father laughed. “What, and that's you? Jason, Jason, Jason. You're such an idiot. You know you can't stop me. You can't even stop yourself. Look at those tears. Like a little baby. You can't control yourself. You can't do a damned thing right.”_

_JD trembled, knowing that his father was going to hurt him again. Maybe even shoot him. “Please.”_

_The gun smacked the side of his head, and he fell into the nightstand, tumbling to the floor._

_“What have I told you about begging?”_

_JD lowered his head. Maybe it would be better if he just died. Then his father couldn't hurt him anymore. He'd be free, like his mother._

* * *

_“I know what you're thinking,” Big Bud said from behind him, and JD cursed himself for jumping like that. He was an idiot. He knew better than to let his father see him scared. The bastard was laughing now, enjoying it. “Oh, Jason. Did I scare you?”_

_“No.”_

_His father put a hand on JD's shoulder, pinching it and causing him to cry out. “What have I told you about lying?”_

_“That it's all you do,” JD said, and his father moved his hand from his shoulder to his neck, cutting off his air supply._

_“I thought we discussed your attitude, too. Are you trying to get yourself killed?”_

_JD scrambled, trying to pry his father's fingers loose. He didn't know why he still fought. He should have given up years ago, back when this first started, back when his mother died._

_His father shoved him forward, and he landed on his hands and knees, panting and gasping for air._

_“Too bad. I don't think I'll kill you today. Not when it's what you want,” Big Bud said, and JD glared at him until his father kicked him in the side. He fell, wrapping an arm around his stomach and fighting the pain. “Would you like to play a game?”_

_“No.” His father's games were always painful, and JD didn't have the strength to fight right now. He never did. He'd tried using his father's exercise equipment when he was stronger, but he didn't seem to get anywhere in their fights. He'd given up trying to be obedient, having learned a long time ago that it didn't matter if he talked back or not. His father would still hurt him, especially after one of his demolitions._

_“I was thinking of giving you a present,” his father said, leaning over him again, and JD grimaced. No present was ever good in this house. “Your very own one of these.”_

 _His father caressed his cheek with the barrel of his gun, running it up and down his skin until he shuddered._

_“I want to see how long it takes you before you try and kill yourself.”_

_JD swallowed. “No. You wouldn't let that happen. You lock up the knives, you bastard.”_

_“Yes, but we both know you can't use this,” Big Bud said, moving the gun down JD's face, down his neck and along his back. “You're too much of a coward.”_

_“I'll kill you. I swear I will.”_

_“No, you won't. You won't even try because you know as well as I do if I end up dead, they'll all know it was you. You're the only one who'd try it, the only one I know in this new town. Of course they'll know it's you. And they'll hunt you for the rest of your life.”_

_“Not if it was self-defense.”_

_“What, because I knocked you around a bit? You're an idiot to think anyone's going to believe that. You're a troublemaker, remember? How many schools have you been expelled from now? One for every town, isn't it?”_

_JD turned away. That was different. He was defending himself against jocks and jerks, and against them he actually sometimes stood a chance, as long as his father hadn't beaten him that badly the night before. “So what?”_

_“So everyone will know you're just a troubled teen who acted out against dear old dad for no reason at all. You'll go to prison. They'll love you there. You're so pretty, after all. Like your mother.”_

_The gun was still caressing him, and his father's words made him sick. “Shut up.”_

_“So I will give you this gun, and I'll let you go, and I'll wait. I'm thinking, what, two days, tops, before you try and put a bullet in your head. Yeah, that sounds right, doesn't it, Jason?” Big Bud laughed. “How about right now? If I put this gun here, you'll try and use it now, won't you?”_

_“To kill you.”_

_“You won't,” Big Bud said with confidence. “You can't, and you know it. You know who will get custody of you if I die? You know it won't be them leaving you on your own. You're too young for that, and I made sure my money's tied up good. You won't get a penny of it if you kill me, and won't that be a shame. How will you ever afford your defense attorney?”_

_“Go to hell.”_

_“Very funny, son. You know you're already there.”_

* * *

_“I got away with murder again.”_

_JD almost dropped his slushie, turning to look at his father. The bastard was standing over there, grinning, gloating in his underwear with a beer in his hand. “You're supposed to be at work.”_

_“And you're supposed to be at school,” his father countered, walking over to him. He took the drink out of JD's hand and shook his head. “Still an idiotic little kid. Haven't learned a damned thing yet, have you?”_

_“Better than whatever sick thing you are,” JD told his father, and Big Bud hit him, knocking him back. He lost his balance and fell, no wall to catch him. His father smiled and poured the beer out on him as he cursed and spluttered, trying to get away from it._

_“I blew up the damned tree. They tried to arrest me for it, but they couldn't prove a damned thing, like usual.”_

_“I could prove it for them,” JD muttered, picking himself up and trying to wipe off the beer._

_“You can't prove a damned thing, either,” his father said, kneeling down next to him. “Except that you're a coward. Too scared even to pull that trigger on yourself, aren't you?”_

_JD didn't bother telling him that he was waiting for when he could kill his father and get away with it. He had been planning that for a while. He knew he couldn't use the gun his father bought him, so he'd need others. He'd need money. He'd need to buy them in a place where no one knew they were his when he used them against his dad._

_He was planning, trying to use the constant moving against his father, but it also meant he didn't make much progress before he was forced into some other town._

_And he couldn't get a lot done when his father was drinking and hitting him, which happened more and more the longer they were in any one place._

_“Today, we celebrate,” Big Bud said. “Because I got away with it... and you never will.”_

* * *

“JD?”

“Killing him was all I wanted for years. Oh, I thought about doing it to the assholes at every new school, but we'd move and it was just same shit, different day, and it seemed pointless. No need to kill anyone when I'd be shuffled off to a new place in a few weeks anyway,” he said, going behind his desk. “Him, though. Him I wanted dead.”

“You never did anything against him. You said you'd never thought about whether you liked him or not,” Veronica said. She still remembered that conversation, and not just because he'd shot the radio or thought that kissing her against her will would make her stay.

“I had a plan. It was a pretty damned good one until you came along and I threw it out the window to help you,” he said, shaking his head. “So damned stupid. Just like he always said I was.”

She shook her head. In a sick way, he'd been brilliant. He'd planned those murders well, and he'd gotten away with them. Even now, people thought Heather Chandler's death was a suicide and that Ram and Kurt had actually been gay.

“You could have gotten help.”

“Again, you're not listening. I tried that. I tried running away from him, I tried killing him... I stabbed him once. Pissed him off so bad he put me in the hospital and started locking up all the knives,” JD muttered. “I didn't do so well when I tried with the gun. Hesitated and paid for that one.”

“You were fine using it later.”

“Practice. I was working myself up to him,” JD said. “It wasn't just about killing him by then. It was killing him and getting away with it. That, and he'd threatened to send me to someone just as bad as he was if he died before I turned eighteen.”

“God, this is sick,” Veronica muttered, sitting down on the edge of his desk. He needed another chair in here. “And yet I'm still having a hard time believing it because if you did hate him that much and he knew... why did he let you have that much freedom? Why did he let you have a gun? Why did he help you survive that bomb?”

“He was a twisted sadist who enjoyed hurting me. Having me die just meant he could have as much fun as he wanted and no one need ever know.”

Veronica gagged. “Where is Big Bud now?”

“Where do you think?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica reacts to what she just learned, and JD doesn't cope with her reaction well. Plus flashbacks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually ended up with too many flashbacks for this chapter. I ended up keeping two back for later, though one of them would answer some other questions. These might not so much, but they were sort of on the subject matter at hand, so they stayed.
> 
> And, kind of a funny thing, while I was writing this, I was drinking a frappucino and managed to give myself a brain freeze. Not exactly a slushie, but it seemed oddly fitting.

* * *

It took two seconds for that to blow up in his face.

In the end, he wasn't surprised, but he supposed he'd gotten his hopes up when she stuck around, even if he knew a hell of a lot better.

“You killed him?”

He didn't answer, and that just made it worse, but it wasn't like denying it would have worked, either. 

“You said you were done with killing. You said it was over back in Sherwood, and I believed you,” Veronica said, shaking her head. She was already halfway to the door by the end of her speech. She threw it open and started running. “Never again. I said it. I said never again, and I did it anyway. God, I am such an idiot.”

“Ronnie, wait,” he called after her, running to catch her. “It's not what you think. It wasn't a lie. Just let me finish—”

“No. We are done. Done. I never should have listened to you.”

“Veronica, please—”

She shoved the outer door open, making the damned bells jingle, and ran out into the night. He swore, trying to fight the urge to go after her again. It wouldn't change anything. She was back to believing the worst of him, and a part of him deserved it. He knew that.

He'd gotten plenty screwed up over the years, and it was only long after his father was out of his life that he understood a lot of what happened and why. He hadn't really known the effect of all the abuse without hindsight, good old bitch that she was, and he'd only understood later how his father had manipulated him into silence and accepting a lot more than he ever should have. He'd thought he had no way out, and he'd been wrong a hundred times over, but as a kid, he'd never seen it. He'd thought Big Bud had him trapped, and he saw only killing him and getting away with it as a way out.

Killing himself only meant Bud won, and he'd refused to let that happen.

Only years afterward had he understood that he'd let the bastard win anyway by living.

He ran a hand through his hair, trying to figure out what the hell he was going to do now. Veronica was panicking, not thinking straight, but when she did, she'd come back for him. She had to, didn't she? He'd as much as admitted to another crime, at least to her mind.

“I don't know that you can actually be blamed for staying silent if your father killed your mother,” Enid observed, and he looked over at her, shaking his head again. “I mean, you were a kid, right?”

“I take it you finally managed to look me up,” he said, his voice cold, but then he was far from numb at the moment, not after Veronica picking at that particular old wound. What did she think it would do, asking about his mother? Had she been trying to push him far enough to get violent with her? Was that it?

She'd said it to bait him into hurting her so she had an excuse besides the fraud to arrest him with, one that wouldn't expose her and might even get her off the mandatory therapy.

Great. He really was an idiot for going to her.

“The pieces were all there,” Enid said. “I had enough when she first came, actually, but I put it off to find Betsy's killer.”

“No, you didn't.”

Enid sighed. “So I didn't want to believe her about you being a monster. That's not a crime.”

He frowned. “What have I ever done that would make you believe in me?”

“Plenty of little things. You can be a decent guy when you're not being a bastard, and don't forget I've been with you when you solved crimes, too. I helped you find murderers and save kids from perverts. You're not all bad. You can't be.”

“I'm not good. Sooner you accept that, Enid, the better,” he told her, turning back to the door. He walked out into the night, knowing it was all over and not knowing what the hell he was going to do now. Of all the things he'd done, to have it be Big Bud that was his undoing...

Well, that was just perfect, wasn't it?

* * *

_“Damn, that thing is disgusting,” Big Bud said, lifting up JD's hand and looking at the ugly marks from the reattachment surgery. He didn't know how his father had found it, not sure how it had survived Veronica shooting it like that. The doctor told him it was a clean break, though it hardly looked like it right now. His father was right. It was disgusting._

_“Why bother?” JD asked. “Everything you've done to me, the things you've bent or broken, the way you almost killed me over and over again, and you made them put my finger back on... why?”_

_His father dropped his hand and reached over to pat his cheek. “Only I get to break you. Don't you understand that yet? Sometimes I wonder if you have a brain in there at all.”_

_JD wasn't brilliant. He knew that. He sometimes had moments, like his plan for Kurt and Ram, and the lie he'd told Veronica then—it was brilliant. She'd bought it. He was proud of that before, but now, lying in this damned bed, helpless for God knew how long, he'd stopped being proud. He had lost Veronica, and killing for her hadn't solved anything. The school was the same, and his father was still here, still making him miserable._

_So much for that plan of offing him and the bastard he had given custody of JD to in his will. That was what he should have done with those guns, like he'd meant to, but instead, he'd let his feelings for Veronica change his path, and he was paying for it now._

_He'd never be free. He'd planned on it, planned on killing his father, and even if he hadn't, there was always turning eighteen to look forward to, being old enough where they'd never send him back to the bastard if he did run._

_Except now everyone thought he was dead, and his father loved to laugh about that as he hurt JD in new ways, ones he wouldn't have tried before when they had to have a pretext of a normal life._

_“You look like your mother today,” his father said, and JD flinched at the touch, hating when his father brought his mother into this. “I see her in you. In those scared eyes, even when you're trying to be defiant. You don't know how much you look like her.”_

_“Liar. She was blond, jackass, and we don't have the same eyes or—” JD's words cut off into a scream as his father went for his hand. He liked using that against him. It probably would never heal properly even if his body didn't end up rejecting it right now._

_“You know what else you have in common with your mother?”_

_“What, that we're both dead?” JD muttered, fighting the pain in his hand to speak. He wondered if his father was planning on drugging him again. That had happened a lot, too, since he “died” in front of Veronica._

_His father leaned down to whisper in his ear, and JD screamed for an entirely different reason, trying to stop him before he got started. Big Bud smiled as he turned the drip on the IV, and JD couldn't do much of anything as the drugs flooded his system, leaving him completely at his father's mercy again._

_Not that the bastard knew anything of mercy. If he did, he would have let JD die a long time ago._

_He was still alive. Still trapped._

_He could tell himself when he recovered, he'd kill his father, but that was little comfort now, when he couldn't fight back at all, when he lingered awake enough to know everything his father did to him and yet not awake enough to do anything about it._

_Still, he had to try and plan something. There had to be a way to get out of here. He just had to find it. If he could think, he could do it. He knew that. He'd take everything from Big Bud the way he'd taken everything from him, and when he was done, he'd kill him. No games._

_JD was done with games._

* * *

“I have to admit, my money was on the slushie,” Enid said as she sat down in the booth across from him. “I don't know why. It's not like it would be strong enough, but when a case goes bad on us, that's your first stop. It seems to keep you going.”

“The one constant in my life,” he said, lifting his drink in salute before downing it. He flagged down the waitress for another, and Enid shook her head. “You know they'll card you, right? You are way too young for this place.”

“I have my id, which is more than you can say seeing as you're legally dead in the state of Ohio,” Enid said. He snorted, and she reached for his hand. “Don't do this.”

“You didn't even know who I was until earlier today, which rules out the idea of you being my daughter from some random hookup when I was young and stupid—not that there were many of those, my father made sure of that, and you're not Veronica's, which would have been the mostly likely of my relationships to spawn a child—and even if you were, you'd be a bit too young to be the age you listed on your application, unless that was a lie,” he said, studying her. “What gives, Niddie? This naïve side of yours about to prove to be an act? You knew who I was all along and you came to work for me so you could get me to trust you and then you reveal in the big twist that you're the one killing these girls to look like Heather Chandler?”

“Sounds like a bad fanfiction to me, and no,” Enid answered. “I'm not the killer. I'm not related to you—thank God—and I don't have any interest in a relationship, either. It is actually possible for that to exist, contrary to popular opinion. I can care about you and not want to sleep with you. And no, it's not because I'm asexual or gay. That's also a stereotype.”

“More the gay than the other thing, but okay, say I believe this. That still doesn't answer why you're here,” he told her. “Or how you found me, for that matter, because I've never brought you here before, I don't make a habit of this place, and I don't carry credit cards or anything else you can trace.”

“This was the fifth seedy bar I tried,” she admitted, and he laughed. “It's not funny. I had to go through every convenience store first.”

“That's some dedication there, Niddie. Not to mention a complete waste of time.”

“Not when I may have proof our killer met Abby Marten and Theresa Conners on reddit, too. There's not as much to the conversation with Conners, but the thread Abby Marten was involved in ends with them deciding to take their conversation somewhere else, somewhere private.”

He blinked. “And you still managed to look everywhere for me in one night, too?”

“Well, it was easy when the girls shared the same internet provider. See, there's a bunch of little ones, and a bunch of bad ones, but the better one is actually worth using, and it has branches all over the country. Once I had a back door into it to get into Betsy Grant's account, I could use that to get to just about anyone's.”

“And yet somehow you use your powers for good instead of evil.”

“Only about as much as you do,” she said. “Seeing as I'm a hacker and accessory to fraud.”

He nodded. That was amusing, in its way, but it still didn't make Enid make any sense. She was a bit like the classic, he supposed, the good girl attracted to the bad boy, except she always denied that. She was someone who wanted to stay good and be bad while not breaking the rules, which reminded him a bit of Veronica when he'd first known her, but he knew they weren't the same, either. It almost would fit, Enid being the killer, but why? What the hell for?

And he certainly hadn't seen it coming. He still thought she was naïve and sweet.

He must be slipping.

“You're lost in theory land again, aren't you?”

“Better than self-pity, I guess,” he said, looking back at Enid. “You know it won't change anything. We can't prove that he was in any of those houses, and we don't know who he is.”

“But if we can get access to Abby's reddit account, we can find where they agreed to continue their conversation and prove they eventually met.”

He stared at her, saying nothing. The waitress set his new drink in front of him, and he reached for it, taking a sip.

“Did you want anything?” the waitress asked Enid. “Maybe a soda?”

He set his drink down so his laughter wouldn't spill it as Enid dug out her id in annoyance. She slammed it on the table.

“Give me what he has.”

The waitress picked up the card and studied it, still looking like she didn't believe it. She set it back down and left without another word.

“That happen to you often?”

“Shut up, you jerk.”

“Just saying,” he began, and she shook her head, still irritated. He finished his drink, pulling out his wallet and taking out enough bills to cover the cost of his tab.

“You're leaving? I haven't even had my drink yet.”

He reached over to pat her on the head. “You really don't belong in any of this, Niddie. Now go home, get some sleep, and tomorrow find yourself a real job.”

“You can't do that. You can't just go. I don't know what she said to you, but you can't quit.”

“Can. And did. Hours ago. Go home. It's over.”

* * *

_JD's eyes opened slowly, and he looked around the room. He knew it, though it had been a long time since he'd been able to see it clearly. They were still in that house in Sherwood. He would have thought his father would have moved on by now, but they were still here._

_He forced himself up, needing to get out of the bed. He wasn't sure how long it had been since he'd been here, but this was the first time in a long time that he felt like he could do anything. He hadn't been able to do much moving the last few times, and not because of the bullet wounds or his hand._

_He gave it a look, finding it almost normal color again, with a few bits of scarring, and he frowned. Damn. How long had it been since he'd been really awake?_

_He shoved the gown off his shoulder and gagged to see the bullet wound was all healed up, too. He didn't understand. He couldn't have slept that long._

_There were fresh bruises in plenty of other places, but the old wounds were just scars now. He should have been out of this bed months ago. He looked at the IV and winced. It was near empty. He was only awake now because it was wearing off, and he didn't know how long it had been since his father had been in to check on him._

_He forced his legs over the edge of the bed, getting woozy as he did. He had to keep going. He had to get out of here._

_“I see I'm a bit late,” Big Bud said, and JD looked over to see him in the doorway. “Should have known you'd wake up while I was gone, but they weren't exactly wanting to give this out for free, you know.”_

_JD gagged. So much for escaping. “You don't need that.”_

_“Oh, don't I?” Big Bud asked. “I wish I'd had it years ago, actually. Not that it wasn't fun all along, but this is a much easier way of keeping the neighbors out of our business. You're a hell of a lot quieter, too.”_

_“No.”_

_“Trying to deny it?” Big Bud laughed. “Admit it, Jason. You have no idea what I've done to you in the last month. Doesn't that scare you a little? Oh, yes, I can see it does.”_

* * *

Veronica sat at her desk, feeling numb. She'd just finished another therapy session, but she had no idea what she'd said in there. She could have confessed to the whole thing. She didn't know. She hadn't been able to think since she realized JD had killed his father. She'd tried and failed.

She had almost been ready to trust him, and she knew better than that. She had an explanation for why he was still alive, but it didn't actually explain everything, and knowing that he'd killed his father after the man saved him didn't make it any better.

She should tell Richards everything, that JD was alive, that he'd killed his father, and that he was probably behind these new deaths, no matter what he or that girl Enid said.

“You know you should be at home,” Richards said. “Therapy's done for the day.”

“And they haven't cleared me yet, I take it,” Veronica said, still wondering what she might have said in there. She regretted losing touch with Betty Finn and Martha Dunnstruck. She'd never made any good friends since them, not in college or the bureau. Her marriage had fallen apart, and she had no one and nothing to go home to. She'd never felt more alone than right now.

JD was alive. He had an assistant, and that woman was a loyal friend.

What kind of a world was it where a sociopath like JD had a loyal friend and Veronica had no one?

She had half a mind to go back and tell that girl exactly what he had done, show her she actually was working for a monster.

“Agent Hanson?”

Damn, speak of the devil, and she appeared, though Veronica knew no one would think Enid was anything close to a devil. She looked more innocent than any of the Heathers had ever been, but all of them could get away with almost anything. Veronica had gotten away with murder.

“Agent Hanson's off duty,” Richards said. “Is there something I can help you with?”

Enid ignored him. “I have information that will help you.”

Veronica shook her head. “If this information came from him, then no. I can't use it. I don't care what he told you or how he fooled you, but I do know that he can't be trusted.”

“And I know that you're being an idiot and letting your prejudice ruin a lot of lives,” Enid said. “I also know that if you looked at Abby Marten's reddit account, you'll find she was in contact with a boy—or someone posing as a boy—pretending to share her interest in a popular web comic. This led to them corresponding in private.”

“It's not proof,” Veronica said, though they'd been looking for even the smallest hint that there was someone new in any of the girls' lives because they couldn't connect anyone they did know of to any of the others. This killer seemed to be a ghost, which was why it looked so much like JD. “Just because she spoke to someone online doesn't mean anything.”

“It does when Abby wasn't the only one in contact with someone new in her life through reddit. Betsy Grant was and so was Theresa Conners. Most likely the other two were as well.”

“Excuse me?” Richards said. “How would you know any of that?”

“I work for a psychic,” Enid said, answering Richards' question. “He told me that the girls were killed by someone pretending to be their lover. They trusted their killer, drank the poison without question.”

Richards studied her, making the assumption almost everyone did when it came to psychics. “Did he now?”

“And I can prove he was in the hospital when the fifth victim died, so you can forget that,” Enid told him. “He is not your killer. He can help you find the one who is.”

Veronica didn't believe this. JD knew better than to come and offer his help. She would have no choice if he did. She had to turn him in. “Do you have any idea what you're doing?”

Enid nodded. “I know.”

“I don't think you do,” Veronica said, rising to go to her side. “If you or your boss is attempting to defraud the government or even just wastes our time, there will be consequences. I know you might think you're helping, but I don't think you understand what you're dealing with here. Or who.”

Enid glared back at her. “I know what you think, but I'm not an idiot. Look at her reddit account. You'll see I'm right.”

“You just said you're right,” Richards asked, picking up on that quicker than Veronica would have expected. “Who's the psychic, you or this Judas Dane?”

“I'm right about him,” she repeated. “Check the reddit account.”

She turned, starting to walk away. Richards looked at Veronica, and she swallowed. She knew that JD was one of few who knew the actual truth of Heather Chandler's death, and that still made his actions suspect, no matter what Enid could or couldn't prove. The man should be dead, and he'd killed his father. He was not innocent. They couldn't trust him.

“Wait,” Richards called to her, and Enid looked back at him. “What else do you know?”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enid fights to keep the case, to Veronica's frustration as well as JD's.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had two other flashbacks written and didn't use either one of them for this chapter, writing a whole new one instead. And there were two things warring to win the cliffhanger ending on this one, and I went with the one that came first, even if the other one is going to have to come soon, but I don't know that JD is ready for that reveal yet.

* * *

Veronica almost wished she had JD's cell number or email. She'd sneak him a text or a message now, tell him what his assistant was up to, since she had a strong feeling that he wasn't aware of any of this. He wouldn't have let Enid come. She thought back to those cases only marked as possible tips from him and figured she knew the reason—even if he wasn't responsible for those deaths, he was avoiding working too closely with law enforcement—with good reason. Any psychic was a potential fraud, and every department knew that. Some looked closer than others, but the more of a reputation for being genuine he got, the more they'd look to prove it and want him for more cases, ones that would mean more scrutiny and less opportunity to make this act of his work.

And anyone who looked too deeply into JD would discover that he wasn't Judas Dane. He was Jason Dean, who at best committed suicide as a troubled teen and at worst was a murderer. He didn't quite qualify for serial killer since there was some debate over which one of them was fully responsible for Heather's death and she had been the one to shoot Kurt, but he'd helped plan it, so he almost was.

Enid said she knew what she was doing, but she didn't. She was putting JD into the public eye, and it would all come out, everything he'd done.

“I don't have much,” Enid said. “I'm not the psychic. He would know more than me, and he could get the vibes or whatever, but he's only been to the one house because Mrs. Grant invited him.”

“You want us to approve sending this fake psychic into our crime scenes?” Richards asked, and Veronica wondered where his sense of political correctness had gone, though she shouldn't complain because he would piss Enid off at this rate, and she'd leave.

“I think you should at least check the reddit accounts. It could mean you find this killer. Isn't that what you want?”

“That's a very specific tip you're giving,” Richards said. “Why reddit?”

Enid shrugged, and damned if she didn't look innocent, better than any of the Heathers had ever been at pretending they were being kind and not evil. “I don't know what he sees in the visions or hears from the spirits. I just know what he tells me.”

Veronica stared at her. She knew that JD was a fraud, but she was standing there trying to sell it to Richards even though she'd admitted to Veronica that she knew JD was a fake. It was bold, but she was crazy to think it would work.

“I don't think he knows anything,” Veronica began. “And if we find out you used some kind of illegal means to learn about this—”

“Yeah, I know. You'll arrest me for fraud and whatever it is you think I've done,” Enid said. Then she smiled in a way that did remind Veronica of the Heathers. “Shouldn't you worry about what _you've_ done?”

Richards was watching them, and Veronica had to admit she was nervous. She hadn't told Enid anything, and JD seemed to be trying to avoid it, but she'd said too much in front of Enid anyway. She'd talked about the bomb, about shooting him. She'd asked about Big Bud and him murdering JD's mother. The girl could have figured plenty out with a few internet searches, even if she didn't know that Veronica and JD were behind the so-called suicides.

“What did this psychic tell you?”

“You mean do I know anything about Agent Hanson's work record?” Enid asked, smiling ever so sweetly. “I suppose I might, but that hardly seems like something I need to tell you.”

Veronica glared at her. “That just means you don't actually—”

“Was that shooting in the warehouse really necessary? They never did find his weapon, did they?”

Veronica gagged. How the hell did JD's assistant know that?

“It would seem your psychic is well-informed,” Richards said. “We'll have someone look into the reddit account and get back to you. Agent Hanson will see you out.”

* * *

“How the hell did you know about that?” Veronica demanded, as soon as the elevator doors shut behind her. “You couldn't know without having access to my files. And you couldn't have found out that stuff about the reddit accounts, either. JD is not a psychic. He's a psychopath.”

Enid looked at her. “The only one who looks insane here is you.”

Veronica knew she was a mess. She hadn't been doing that great before this case and her conviction that it was actually JD behind the deaths, and then he'd shown up. Alive. Claiming to be innocent. It had thrown her for one hell of a loop, and she didn't know how to regain her footing.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because as messed up as he is and wrong as the way he does it might be, I've seen him help people. You think anyone else would have taken that gaslighting case seriously? Even I thought he was stupid for taking it on. The lady just needed therapy and to take the pills the shrink gave her because she was hallucinating. He thought it was different, and he was right. Her siblings were driving her insane to get her trust fund. How sick is that? Still, it's not like the police or the FBI would have looked into that, is it?”

Veronica knew they wouldn't have, but she didn't understand why JD had, either. “He is a killer, and you can't trust him.”

“You must believe the only point of putting someone in prison is to keep them away from society and there's no such thing as rehabilitation,” Enid said, and Veronica blinked. “I don't know. Maybe it's naïve to think people can change, but I've always believed if people wanted to enough, they could.”

“What is your damage? Why work for him? Why trust him? You didn't even know his real name until, what, yesterday? How can you still believe in him?”

“I answered an ad,” Enid said, “and he intrigued me, so I stayed. And stop looking at me like that. It's not sexual. I'm not in love with him and excusing his actions. He's a jerk half the time, and if he was actually milking people for all they had, I'd have left a long time ago, but most of the time, I don't even know how our bills get paid because he doesn't charge hardly anything for what he does, not like a private detective would or anything like I'd expect a con man would, either. And if you listen to him go off on something from his psychology books, he's brilliant. He understands things I can't, and sometimes his understanding is dark and scary and I think about quitting and turning him in. I do that when he pisses me off, too.”

“You really are—”

“Yeah, save it,” Enid said as the elevator doors opened on the ground floor. “You and I are never going to get along because you think he's corrupted and brainwashed me, and I think I could hate you for undermining him enough to make him quit. This is the life he chose for himself, and it may not make sense to you, it doesn't fully make sense to me, but you don't have the right to ruin it for him. Not when I know he could have ruined it for you and hasn't.”

Veronica followed her out of the elevator. “He wouldn't have done anything to me without exposing himself.”

“He's a psychic,” Enid reminded her. “He could ruin you with any number of visions or words from the spirits, but he still cares what you think of him. He wants you to believe he didn't do this. I don't even know that he cares if anyone else does. I don't like it. I don't like the power you seem to have over him, and I won't let him quit because of you. He's doing good.”

Veronica shook her head. “It doesn't excuse what he did before.”

“If that's so true for him,” Enid began. “Why does it work for you?”

Veronica couldn't answer that.

* * *

_“Come here.”_

_JD didn't move, refusing to obey any orders from his father. He'd already been told they were going to move again, and he didn't want to. He'd finally found kids at school that didn't hate him for being new, and this was the first place he'd liked since his mother died._

_Well, almost, but the other was still tainted after what happened to the dog._

_“I told you to come here,” his father snapped, and before he knew it, he'd been dragged across the room to the chair. “Sit. You're going to want to stay put for this.”_

_Not with his father holding him in some gross parody of affection. This was too much like a hug, like something he would have done when he was younger, when his mother was still alive, when he didn't understand how much of a monster he was living with._

_“You see, son, I've got distressing news for you,” his father went on, combing his hands through JD's hair and making him want to puke. “It's about your friend, George.”_

_JD tensed, staring at his father. “What did you do?”_

_His father's grip tightened on his hair. “I'm sure I don't know what you mean. Still, I have to tell you that your friend was hurt last night. Such a sad thing. He was walking home from that job of his—you know, that one you said you wanted? He was walking home and got attacked.”_

_Knowing what his father had done to him, JD could picture it, the beating George must have taken. It made him sick._

_JD tried to push himself up out of his father's lap, but Big Bud held him still. This hold was awkward, and JD didn't fit like this, but Bud held on like he was actually trying to comfort him. Bastard. “Let go of me. I know you did this.”_

_“The police think that someone saw his uniform and figured he had tip money on him. They must have robbed him.”_

_“You're lying. George washed dishes. He didn't have any money to steal.”_

_“Not lying about what the police think,” Big Bud said, yanking JD's head up so he faced him. “Remember what I told you? You have me, that's it. Your mother's gone, and it's just you and me. You don't need anyone else. You don't need their money. I've got all you need. You don't have to work. I'll give you what you want.”_

_“You don't give me anything.”_

_“That's not true. I gave you a great gift the other day.”_

_JD shuddered. The gun was still in his drawer, and he kept trying to make himself use it, but every time he thought about killing himself to end it, he saw his father smiling and knew that was what he wanted. And here it had been different. George hadn't asked for anything, he'd just been nice, and he accepted JD when no one else did. He'd offered to help set him up with work, and JD had wanted it, needing a way to make his own money and get free of his father._

_He shouldn't have tried selling the gun, but he'd been desperate, and that always made him do stupid stuff. Telling George he wanted to get a job was stupid, too, but he'd trusted George. George was the only friend he'd made since his mother died._

_“You don't need anyone else,” his father insisted, holding onto him even tighter, making this sick mockery of a hug worse. “Don't you see that? You don't need to tell anyone our problems, and you don't need to beg for money. I take care of my boy.”_

_He touched JD's cheek, and he gagged, trying again to pull away._

_“Let go.”_

_“Not until you understand that you are mine and mine alone. You don't get friends. You don't tell them anything. You don't share. I don't share. I have all the love you need right here.”_

_“This isn't love. You're sick. I know you hurt George, and I'll tell the police.”_

_His father put his hand around his neck, cutting off his air. “I could have killed him. I could kill you. And think of how weak George is now. You want him to suffer more?”_

_“No,” JD choked out. “I don't.”_

_“Good. Now you just sit still and let Dad take care of you,” his father said, letting go of his throat. He gasped, sucking in air, and his father chuckled, wiping away the involuntary tears. “See? This is love, Jason. It's what I give you. Forget about your friend. We'll be moving soon anyway.”_

* * *

He jerked up, finding himself alone on his couch with relief, groaning in pain as the headache hit a second later. Damn, he knew not to drink like that. He knew better than to leave himself open to that much loss of control. He hadn't done it in a long time, and the last time—well, someone ended up in the hospital, but he didn't entirely regret it.

It did make him more determined to keep himself sober, which was a good thing, considering his anger issues. He knew better than to trust himself.

He heard a pounding and went back to staring at his room in confusion. He didn't have neighbors. He couldn't allow himself to have neighbors. The lack of privacy was dangerous. No one was here to make noise. He'd left the bar before he was drunk enough to bring anyone home, and he never did that anyway. Their place, maybe, but not his own.

He'd done the rest of his drinking in private, and way too damned much of it, judging from the empty bottle on the table.

He rose, fighting his aching head to cross to the door, pulling it open with a frown.

“Slushie,” Enid said, holding it out to him, almost hitting his nose with the straw.

He pushed it back, uncomfortable. “Since when do you know where I live?”

“Since I found your shell company that makes some of the payments when we're short on clients was owned by another dozen shell companies leading back to the one that owns this building,” Enid answered. “I am a hacker. Why does this surprise you?”

He shook his head. He supposed it shouldn't, but he still didn't understand what she was doing here. “That doesn't mean you come here when I'm enjoying my hangover to give me one of those. That's too much like bribery, and it won't work.”

“Blackmail might.”

He folded his arms over his chest. “Who are you and what have you done with Enid?”

She rolled her eyes, moving past him to get inside. “Please. I work for you. I've never been as good as you've deluded yourself that I am. I just happen to like helping people in our very unconventional way, okay? I refuse to lose it, and so I told the FBI what we knew about the reddit accounts.”

He put a hand to his head. “Niddie, that's insane. And it makes you look guilty as hell.”

She shook her head. “Where is your kitchen? You obviously need more than this if you're still thinking that. I'll make you some coffee.”

“You are not making me coffee,” he said, shutting the door and following her wayward course toward the wrong side of the house. She seemed to realize she was heading for the bedrooms and stopped, backing into him as she went to turn around.

He took the slushie from her. “You need to leave. You have no idea the kind of trouble you just got us into, and I have to find some way to fix it.”

“I am not letting you back out of this,” she insisted. “You need to finish this. Not just to prove to that woman that you're not what she thinks you are, but to yourself. You need it. You're not what you were. You have to show everyone that.”

He folded his arms over his chest. “Since when do you know what I need?”

“Since the day I started working for you. I've been indispensable. Don't deny it. You know it's true,” she said. “Now drink your slushie while I make that coffee. We have work to do.”

* * *

“You can stop any time,” he told Enid as she rummaged through his cupboards. “You're not making coffee.”

“Is this where you admit, after I've been searching for this long, that you don't have any?” Enid asked, not looking back at him. “Because that's so you and incredibly juvenile at the same time.”

“I have coffee. I have no intention of telling you where I keep it because I want you to leave,” he said, leaning on the counter and rubbing his head again. Technically, if she wanted to fix the hangover, she should be forcing water down him by the gallon because he was dehydrated, but he wasn't going to tell her that, either. “Enid, stop. Just go.”

“I can't go. I told the FBI you could solve this murder, and I know I'm right about that. Your girlfriend isn't going to do it. She can't see straight these days.”

“Well, I'm sure me coming back from the dead didn't help much,” he muttered. “And stop calling her my girlfriend. That was over years ago, and she's been married and divorced since then.”

“You still care about her.”

“Don't start. I'll have to counter by accusing you of being jealous,” he said, eying her again. Something was still missing there. “And when you get hostile about Veronica, I go back to wondering why the hell you're doing this.”

“I'm not jealous,” Enid said. She looked back at him. “Come on, have I ever once hit on you or remotely acted attracted to you? It's not like that with us. I don't dislike her because I want the love you still seem to have for her. I dislike her because she made you think you had to quit, and I don't like that, don't like her having power over you, but I still don't want you like that.”

He crossed over to her, shutting the cupboard. “You don't want her having that power because you want it. Because this is some kind of sick game, right? You found a way to get to all those girls, you killed them, and you hid your tracks, all the while pretending to be innocent and my friend.”

“Why would you say that?”

“You can pass for a lot younger than you are,” he said. “And there's still something about you that doesn't make any sense. You're a contradiction. You seem to be innocent, but you work for a fraud. You had all those hacking skills before you came to me, and you're not unwilling to break the law for the same fraud. You're fighting for someone who doesn't deserve it all the while claiming that you don't like me that much. Every time I try to understand what you're doing, I end up getting nowhere, and I should know. I've got all those hours spent studying the mind and a few very personal case studies to work from and you still make no sense.”

She rolled her eyes. “You know a big part of that is you thinking no one can love you.”

“And that goes against what you just said.”

“No, it doesn't. Love doesn't have to be sexual. There's friendship and family love, too, but you've never had any of that, so you don't understand it.”

He reached for her, grabbing hold of her arms. “You knew. You lied, but you knew. How long have you actually known?”

“Are you trying to scare me?”

“Answer me, Enid. How long have you known who I really am?”

She swallowed. “Why would I lie about that?”

“A thousand reasons. Answer the damned question.”

“I'm not a killer. I have no reason to copy Heather Chandler's death to torment you because I actually like you,” Enid said. “Let's leave aside all the possible psychological issues I have because I _do_ have them, and focus instead on these dead girls. Someone's killing them and copying that girl Heather's suicide, but why? Why would anyone bother? And why not leave a note if they want it to look like a suicide?”

 _Because it was murder,_ he thought. Someone knew that Heather Chandler's death wasn't a suicide, and they wanted the world to know that, too. So they killed again and again, crossing state lines until the case got the attention of the bureau.

Of Veronica.

Damn it.

It had to be about her. Everyone else thought he was dead. His father had seen to that, even had a damned funeral for him. No one had come, not even Veronica, and Big Bud had enjoyed tormenting him about that for the rest of his life.

Whoever was doing this was killing to get at Veronica.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> JD's new theory leads to an unexpected and potentially dangerous visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am almost positive that JD couldn't actually get away with this, but I was having trouble picturing it any other way.
> 
> It didn't help that, as much as I wanted to write more for this, I was also being distracted by the idea of movie Heathers fused with Pump Up the Volume and how that would change everything.
> 
> I wish it was easier to focus on one idea at a time. I am really bad at that.

* * *

“Jay? What is it?” Enid asked, and he was distantly aware of her putting a hand on his arm, though he was almost too distracted to feel it. “You've got that look on your face, that one you get when you understand what's going on but it's bad. Very, very bad.”

He managed a snort. “I do not have that look. I'm a sociopath.”

“No, you're not, and yes, you do have that look. You should have seen your face when you figured out that we were dealing with people selling kids into sex slavery,” Enid said, shuddering at the memory. “What is it? Tell me.”

He let out a breath, turning away from her. He went to his sink, needing to clear his head. He had to think this through. He was wrong about some part of it, he had to be, but he couldn't be sure which one. They made sense on their own, but they didn't fit together, and that meant something was off somewhere.

“Please answer me. This is starting to scare me.”

“You, Enid? You're tough as nails, aren't you? You work for a fake psychic, you perpetuate cons for a living, and you just bullied the FBI into working with us, but a little silence scares you?”

“When it comes from you in your thinking mode, yes, because your mind is a terrifying place.”

He couldn't argue that one with her. It had never been pleasant in here, and it never would be. He'd been warped from a young age, and since he spent his time either fantasizing about about ways to hurt people or figuring out ways other people had hurt people, it had only gotten worse.

“It doesn't make sense. Everything else adds up to a younger killer, someone the same age as the girls. Has similar interests or knows about them, enough to fake them, makes internet contact, and then they meet. At the girls' home. They trust them, and even if the swordfishing thing worked and it was someone older—”

“Catfishing.”

“What?”

“Catfishing is the term you want. There's no such thing as swordfishing, unless maybe that moment from Disney's Sleeping Beauty counts,” Enid frowned. “Or there could be other references, but I'd rather not think about them.”

“Fine. Whatever,” he muttered. “It doesn't fit.”

She held the slushie out to him. He gave her a look. That was not going to make it make sense. The damned thing was empty already, and there still wasn't any coffee.

“What doesn't fit? We agreed on the lover angle. We worked on it. I found proof there was someone else in their lives.”

“Yes, but you heard what you said. Someone is killing these girls and staging their deaths to mimic Heather Chandler's. They're doing it to torment someone.”

“Yeah, but why? The girl's parents are gone now, heart attack and cancer, and who else would they target?”

He turned back from the sink. “Don't play dumb, Enid.”

“I am not the killer, okay? How many times do I have to say it?”

“You know it's going to take a lot more than words to convince me of anything. I know you're lying to me. Something has always been off about you, but you were right—I needed you. So I kept you around, but I swear, if you are lying to me—”

“You think their target is Veronica,” Enid said. “I know she was friends with that girl, Heather Chandler, when she died, but why use her death to go after Veronica?”

“That's the other part that doesn't make sense.” No one else should know that Heather's death was a murder. Only he and Veronica knew that.

“Why doesn't it make sense?”

He gave her a look. Like he was telling her a damned thing when he knew she was still lying to him. He was not that stupid.

* * *

“You know I'm on leave.”

“Yes, I do.”

“And that usually means I'm supposed to be anywhere but here,” Veronica said, folding her arms over her chest and facing Richards down. He'd told her to wait after that visit from Enid, and she had, trying not to get nervous as she did. He hadn't let her go, though, and it had been hours.

She was more than a little worried by now, even if Enid hadn't told Richards anything he didn't already know. She'd been under review for months after that shoot. No one had found a weapon that night or any night after that, but eventually she had been cleared. They accepted that, weapon or not, she'd believed she saw one when she fired, and it was an honest mistake.

She didn't feel like it was. She never had. She knew that kid had been armed. She didn't know what happened to the gun, but she knew what she'd seen.

“I want you to stay here until we have the results back from the IT department.”

“Why?”

“This psychic seems to know you.”

“She probably found a newspaper article about that bust, that's all,” Veronica said. “It doesn't have to mean anything, and certainly not that he's genuine.”

Richards nodded. “Still, I saw her with you. That woman seemed to dislike you, and it certainly didn't seem like you'd never met. Has someone been naughty while she was on leave?”

“Did you honestly just use the word 'naughty?'”

Richards frowned, hesitating before answering. He was saved from whatever awkward explanation he might have been about to make by his secretary knocking on the door to his office. “What?”

“There's someone here to see you.”

“I don't have any appointments today.”

Mrs. Miller nodded. “I know, but he said the spirits told him to come and that you would want him sent up at once. He also said that when you said that you wouldn't, to remind you of something called... Rosebud. Is he making a Citizen Kane reference or—”

“He is,” Richards said hastily. “Send him up.”

Veronica looked over at her boss. “Rosebud?”

“It's nothing.”

She shook her head, making a note to do some research of her own. She wanted to know what that whole thing was about and how it could change his mind so fast. If JD's assistant could find it, so could Veronica.

“Dear God,” Richards whispered. “It's worse than I thought.”

Veronica wasn't surprised that JD had tried to get into the federal building wearing his robe. He would not want to be recorded or photographed without it, but she hadn't thought he'd get away with it. He must have done something equally sideshow brilliant downstairs, and she was almost sad to have missed it.

Damn it, what the hell was wrong with her? She was not admiring him, and she would not fall for his crap again. She should be pissed as hell that he was here and able to manipulate Richards like that.

“Agent Richards. Agent Hanson,” JD said, putting his hands together. “My assistant spoke to you earlier, but the spirits forced me to come now. They say it's urgent.”

Veronica put a hand to her head. Was his act always this bad? How did he convince anyone he was genuine?

“We haven't been able to verify the reddit tip you gave us before,” Richards began, “and I'm starting to think that whatever you thought you could use to get in here was a fluke. How did you get past security downstairs looking like that?”

“The spirits told me enough to convince them that scanning me for weapons was all that was necessary. Well, no, they did insist on patting me down after I'd been through the metal detector and the hand baton, and I think that one of them enjoyed it a bit more than he should have, but I've found the tidbits I get from the spirits are occasionally useful.”

“Occasionally useful?” Richards repeated, still looking like he didn't believe a word he was hearing.

“To be perfectly frank, Agent Richards, the spirits are assholes,” JD told him, and Richards just stared at him. Veronica almost wanted to laugh, but this should not be funny. “If they weren't, they'd be clear and direct, but with them, it's all riddles and games and half-truths. They never tell you everything you need to know, and what they do give tends to be vague and irritating as hell. I mean, why not just _tell_ me who the killer is so I can tell you instead of this bit about reddit accounts?”

Veronica almost did laugh then. “Maybe because none of it's real?”

“Oh, a skeptic, I see,” JD began, turning toward her. “That will make this more difficult. You see, the spirits have told me that you are in danger.”

“What?” Veronica asked. “From you? Is this a threat?”

He shook his robed head. “This killer has targeted you, Agent Hanson.”

“No,” Veronica said immediately. He was not going to pull this to get her to let him work with her or whatever the hell it was he was up to. “You are not going to—”

“You were friends with Heather Chandler when she died. More than that, though, she had vowed to ruin your life the night before she died. Someone is determined to see that happen.”

Richards frowned. “Is that true? You told me you were friends with Heather Chandler, but the other part, the threat, is that true?”

Veronica sighed. “She was going to destroy me socially, but she never did. No one could know about that.”

“The spirits know lots of things no one should know.”

“You're lying.”

“I'm pretty sure I can convince you,” JD told her, leaning over to whisper in her ear. “I may have been wrong about it being some mysterious lover. I think this killer knows that Heather's death was no accident. That you and I killed her. That's why they've killed across state lines leaving no suicide note. They never wanted anyone to believe it was a suicide—they want everyone to know Heather was murdered. They wanted the FBI looking into it. I'm officially dead. No one's looking for me. You're not. You're an agent. They're after you.”

Veronica swallowed. She'd had that sense before, but she'd also assumed it was JD doing it, tormenting her and trying to drive her insane as he killed innocent girls to get to her. It still could be. This could all be part of his game.

“You can't know that.”

“It fits. Not with the other part about the lover, but it fits,” he insisted. “Someone knows. We thought it was just us, but it can't be. You didn't do this. I didn't do this, but someone knows and is doing it to hurt you.”

“No,” she said, shoving him away from her. “Stop it.”

He stepped back, shrugging. “Actually, I can. Not only are some spirits perverts, but you also had a boyfriend who died—”

“Shut up,” Veronica hissed. He didn't know what he was doing, not when she'd already told Richards about the bombing. If he looked at that, if he connected JD to that and what she'd said about the bomber that would imitate Heather's death like that. 

She didn't know what to think. JD could be right about the killer targeting her, but that meant him. He was the only other person who knew that Heather's death wasn't suicide. He was telling her, again, that it wasn't him, but how did she trust him?

He'd killed his father.

She couldn't trust him.

“Veronica?” Richards asked, sounding concerned. Great.

“Um... Well, this thing has always been about copying Heather's death. We already knew that much,” she began, swallowing hard. “I don't know why they'd think they had to kill others if this was just about ruining me, but we didn't actually look into anyone with a grudge against me before because I was almost certain that the only one who knew about the whole social destruction thing was... well, dead, so there wasn't any point in it.”

“Except there could have been other reasons why you were targeted,” Richards said. “Maybe they felt you should have died, not Chandler. Maybe they blamed you for not doing enough to stop her suicide. It's murder. It's not necessarily rational.”

“Though killers tend to have logic at least in their own minds,” JD observed, getting a frown from Richards. Veronica said nothing. She knew he'd had his “reasons” for killing Kurt and Ram and for attempting to blow up the entire school, but while it made sense to him, it wasn't sane.

Richards turned to her. “I think we need to—”

“No,” Veronica protested immediately. She was not doing that. She'd go insane—more insane—if she was locked away like that. “No protective custody. Absolutely not.”

“The spirits don't like that idea, either,” JD said, and she almost thought he sounded sincere, as bizarre as that was when she knew he was lying. “They say there will be an escalation if you take her out of harm's way.”

“I'm not using her as bait,” Richards told him. “And as for you, I am not letting you tell me what to do with my case. You are not an agent, and we still don't know if you know a damned thing of use. And I think I've been patient enough with this farce—take off that hood.”

JD gave an exaggerated sigh. “If you want my help, the hood stays on. Spirit rules. I can't hear them without it, as irritating as that is. So if you want a psychic, I have to have the robe. That's how it works.”

Richards shook his head. “We are not working with you, and I don't want a psychic.”

“Fine. You will excuse me, then.”

* * *

“No one said you were free to go.”

With a smile, he turned back to face Veronica's superior. “Actually, the constitution does. Due process and all of that stuff you took an oath to protect and follow? You have nothing on me, and while it's true you can hold me for a maximum of seventy-two hours without charging me, I can also use those seventy-two hours to detail everything the spirits have ever told me about anyone in this office, starting with you and Rosebud and going on to your boss and his fetishes, and I think that we would all like to avoid that. Honestly, I don't need to hear that, but that's what these spirits like to give first, the nasty embarrassing details. They're like undead schoolchildren, always eager to spill everyone's darkest, most humiliating secrets.”

“Is that a threat?” Richards asked.

“Would you want to know the sordid details of people's sex lives? When I was a horny teenage boy, maybe. Maybe I would have loved to know that Agent Hanson over there plays a mean game of strip croquet, but as an adult, do I really have to know that her ex-husband was so vanilla he never even let her on top? Not so much.”

“That's private,” Veronica said, cheeks bright red. “How did you even—”

“You don't want to know, darling,” he told her. “Again, if you'll excuse me, I have other matters to attend to, and I'd rather not deal with the spirits that are talking here.”

He stepped into the elevator and quickly closed the doors behind him. He leaned back against the wall and let the car take him down. He would be lucky not to get arrested, and he couldn't afford to be fingerprinted or anything else. He had to go, now, before that happened.

He should never have come in the first place. Too risky. Everything was, but then he had to warn Veronica. He couldn't do much else, and he would have to disappear, give all of this up. The life he'd had as Judas Dane was done, just like Jason Dean was done, and while Judas wasn't going to explode, he certainly couldn't stay here.

He got out of the elevator as soon as it stopped, knowing he didn't have long before someone new stopped him, and he wasn't wearing a headset where Enid could feed him details from the internet this time. He couldn't risk it.

“I still can't believe they let you in like that,” Enid said, rushing over to him as soon as she saw him. “They let you in dressed like that, and detain _me.”_

“Those details you gave me about the guards at the front were very convincing. You should be proud of yourself,” he said as he headed for the outer doors, wanting to get to his car before someone stopped him. 

“I'm not, because what you just did was completely insane,” Enid grumbled, trying to keep pace with him. “That woman believes you're a killer, and she is just waiting for an excuse to arrest you, so you walk right in there and threaten her. You are lucky you weren't arrested on the spot.”

He stepped out into the fresh air, heading for the spot where they'd left Enid's car. “She deserved a warning.”

“Did you ever once consider the possibility that she was the killer? It seems like it's either her or you in this scenario, but I know it wasn't you. Why isn't it her?”

“You don't know her. I do. It's not Veronica. She wouldn't do this. In spite of me, she has a soul. She was better than I was. A force for good. Me, I was chaos, and not the good kind of chaos. No, definitely not the good kind,” he said. He stopped at the car, leaning against it. He wanted to push the hood off and shed the robe, but it was too soon for that. _Chaos killed the dinosaurs. I killed people._

“You could be wrong about her. She's definitely wrong about you.”

“You're the one that's wrong about me. You find good when there isn't anything to find.” He turned back to the door, lifting the handle and opening it. “You don't know the truth.”

“Maybe I do.”

“I think if you did, you'd have to be the killer.”

“Again with that? You used to trust me. We work together well. I helped you get in there to be an idiot, remember? That's us. A team. We're good together.”

“The only reason there's a 'we' right now is because I can't drive in this damned thing,” he told her. He hadn't forgotten the lies, either. She knew more than she'd ever said, and he couldn't trust that any more than Veronica could trust him. “I need to get back to the office.”

“I should leave you right here.”

“Go ahead.”

“Screw you. Just get in the car.”

* * *

“Did you need something, Agent Hanson?”

Veronica didn't bother asking JD how he knew it was her. He probably had some kind of mirror or hidden camera. Or Enid told him with some kind of hidden signal. She wasn't sure. It didn't matter anyway.

“Richards is in there arranging to lock me away for my own good because of you,” she said, still angry about that. “He thinks I'm packing up my things right now.”

“It might be for the best,” he told her. “You can't claim you're fine. Look at you. You can't defend yourself like this, and this killer is after you. Maybe you need someone to watch over you.”

“What, like you?” 

“Or maybe it's just time to pack it all in,” he went on, pulling open his drawer and digging through it. He took out a bunch of random things and shoved them into a bag sitting on top of the desk. “Sounds pretty good to me.”

She swallowed. “You're leaving?”

He shrugged. “Should have done it after I first showed myself to you. Exposing this operation was never part of the plan. Working on the fringe, never being taken seriously, giving the occasional anonymous tip, yes. Open collusion with the FBI? That's a death sentence for me, and I know it. I just... gave into that weakness I still have when it comes to you. I wanted you to know it wasn't me. And then I wanted to warn you. I've done that, and now it's time to remember what I learned about self-preservation.”

“You can't go.”

He stopped, looking up at her. “I would have thought that was what you wanted. Well, other than arresting me, but you're afraid of arresting me. You don't know what I'd say if I was handcuffed and charged, and that scares you. You think I'd tell them about your part in it to save myself. And I'll admit, there have been times when I hated you enough to do it. I did. I hated you. You shot me. You didn't so much as shed a tear when I exploded, didn't attend my funeral. It was like I didn't matter at all to you.”

She didn't know how to respond to that. He'd had a huge impact on her life, but anything good in their relationship tended to be overshadowed by murder and violence. She had wanted to love him, thought maybe she had, but he'd gone too far, and she'd had to save herself.

“I never forgot you,” she said. “And... And if you're right and someone is targeting me, I can't find them without your help.”

He snorted. “Of course you can. You don't need me. You never did.”

“Who else can I even talk to about this?” Veronica countered. “No one else knows. I couldn't tell anyone what I'd done, what we'd done. I wrote it down in my diary, but that's not the same. I needed somewhere to talk about it, but even if Heather Duke hadn't stepped into Heather Chandler's place or Betty Finn and I were back to best friends, I couldn't tell them. I couldn't tell Martha or Heather McNamara. I couldn't tell my parents. I couldn't tell anyone.”

“You might just have screwed yourself over, writing it down,” JD told her. “If anyone found that diary, you'd be fucked, and maybe that was what started all of this. Good work.”

She shook her head. “I burned it after you died. It's gone.”

“You didn't put it in something else, something like a box? Something someone could have taken it out and you burned the box thinking you were safe—”

“I took those pages out and burned each one by hand,” Veronica said. “The diary is gone.”

He leaned back against the wall. “Then how the hell did anyone know? It's not you. It's not me. So who the hell is it?”

“Enid?”

“Admittedly, she's not telling me everything, but I still don't see her as a killer,” JD said, sounding a bit amused by the suggestion. “Niddie dearest, would you like to tell us the truth? Or do I have to have Agent Hanson here use the FBI's resources to find out what you're hiding?”

“What, the great psychic hasn't figured it out?” Veronica couldn't help asking. “Or are the spirits not perverted enough for that?”

He smiled. “Well, they have a twisted sense of humor, I think. Enid, would you like to tell us why you were looking for Big Bud's money and if it had anything to do with say... child support?”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confronting Enid means confronting something else from JD's past, and it leaves everyone unsettled again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had these perfect lines of dialogue for the first scene, and they were all gone by the time I got to write them down, which kind of sent the chapter on a different path than I'd planned on, and that was interesting and frustrating because the chapter was difficult to end afterward, and I am still not sure about it.

* * *

“Or something,” Enid said, stepping into the doorway. She leaned against the frame, pretending she was calmer than she was. He could tell she was upset, but then she should have known that he would figure it out. He wasn't an idiot, and he knew she was keeping something from him. Or was there more to this reaction than he'd thought? “How'd you know?”

“You tipped your hand,” he told her, watching her frown. “How many times did you tell me that I was like your brother?”

She grimaced. “That isn't proof of anything.”

Veronica nodded. “She has a point. It's not like there's much of a resemblance. Actually, there's... none.”

“Well, as my father liked to tell me with a disturbing frequency, I look like my mother,” he said, still feeling sick at those words. “And I happen to know that Niddie looks very much like her mother. They could almost pass for twins—if her mother is the Danny Devito to Enid's Arnold Schwarzenegger in that equation.”

“Ouch,” Enid said. “Talk about rude.”

He shrugged. “I did say you were Schwarzenegger.”

“I'm not so sure that's a compliment,” Enid said, getting a nod from Veronica, though she still looked a bit shell-shocked. “Tell me it wasn't just because I said you were like a brother.” 

“It wasn't,” he told her. “It took me a while to realize it because I was hungover at the time, but then I remembered—the shell company never paid any of our bills. It did pay the initial deposit on this office, though.”

Enid grimaced. “Right. Of course.”

“You finding the trail was still pretty impressive, all things considered,” he said, and she managed a small smile. “Can't have been easy to pick up the trail in the first place. That's what interests me—and why you're still technically a suspect, half-sister or not.”

Enid rolled her eyes. “I knew we should have stopped for the slushies. You'd be in a better mood.”

“Not if it meant delaying getting out of the robe, and it would have,” he disagreed. “That, and I had planned on leaving before Ronnie showed up. I was not supposed to be here.”

“I'm glad you were,” Veronica said, and he looked over at her, not able to respond to that.

“I suppose you want every detail of how I tracked Bud's money to you,” Enid said. He looked back at her, actually surprised by the fact that he didn't. Enid had dug up plenty of obscure facts for him while she was helping him with his psychic act, so her finding the trail with Big Bud's money wasn't that surprising.

“I think I'd like to hear that,” Veronica told her. Her eyes flicked to him, and he shrugged. He didn't need to get in the middle of whatever war was brewing between her and his apparent half-sister. “Starting with why, after you found out he'd somehow managed to kill his father and take his money, you didn't turn him in right away?”

Enid frowned. “Big Bud died in a car crash. He wasn't murdered. Though some said he might have been out there to kill himself. He was drunk, and his construction company was failing, and he'd recently lost his only son—”

“Only we all know that's not true,” Veronica said, gesturing to him. “Someone is very alive right now, and when it comes to possible suicides that aren't really suicides—”

“Seriously? We're going to stop discussing the threat to your life because Enid actually is related to me and also the discussion of how she found me so you can accuse me of murder again? We need to stick to one subject at a time, and at least the one related to the other.”

“Um, Jay, I think her accusing you of murder does kind of seem related to me being... um... your... half-sister,” Enid said, and he couldn't help laughing as she choked on the last bit, barely able to say it. She had told him lots of times that he was like a brother, but she couldn't actually admit to the connection even after they all knew about it? “She thinks I'm still deluded about you. I'm not, but she wants to believe the worst of you, and you're going to let her do it. You have let her do it. Why didn't you just tell her that he died in a car accident?”

He swallowed.

“You were in the car with him, weren't you?” Veronica asked, and he winced, knowing his reaction was giving too much away as he did.

Enid frowned. “None of the accident reports mentioned any sign of anyone else in the car with him. He was behind the wheel. He'd been drinking. He might have been suicidal, but he was alone.”

“Are you going to tell her the truth or not, JD?”

He looked over at Veronica. “The whole truth? You want me to tell my darling baby sister everything?”

“God, don't ever call me that again,” Enid said. “I mean it. We may share a genetic donor, but let's not go any further than that.”

“I have to have the truth about your father,” Veronica told him. “I can't... There's this part of me that thinks you're all I've got, a part of me that knows you're the only one I can talk to, and there may even be a part of me that trusts you, but that part is drowning. Trusting you is like asking to go off the deep end again, and I still keep waiting for the moment where I wake up and find out that you were never alive in the first place. And I know you were in that car.”

“That doesn't mean he killed him,” Enid said. “Jay, please. Just tell her you didn't do it.”

* * *

_“Where the hell is my money?” Big Bud demanded, almost yanking JD out of the bed. He looked up at his father and gagged, nauseous. The drugs did stuff to him, and he didn't know what time it was, what day. He wasn't even sure he'd heard his father right._

_He would rather not hear his father at all._

_“Answer me,” Bud said, shaking him. “What did you do with my money?”_

_“Your money?” JD repeated, shaking his head. “I don't... since when do I have money? I never had any money. You wanted to control all of it. And everything. First her, then me... you let them all think I was dead so you can do whatever you want to me. I don't... I don't even know all you've done.”_

_“Cut the bullshit, Jason. I know you've been pulling out the IV. I know you've been getting up and doing things behind my back. I know you took my money.”_

_JD frowned. He did remember fantasizing about that. He'd thought he'd like to bankrupt his father, destroy his company, and laugh at the chaos. He wanted to do it, but he was in and out of the drugs so often he didn't even know what was real anymore. He sometimes thought he'd made up the whole thing with Veronica and the murders._

_What would his father think of that? He wouldn't be proud. He wouldn't find it intimidating or even funny. He wouldn't believe it, but he'd still hurt JD anyway._

_“Tell me the truth. Tell me what you did with my money.”_

_“I don't know anything about money. Never learned, never made any of my own. Would love to see all of yours burn...”_

_“What did you do, Jason?” Big Bud put his hand around JD's throat. “Tell me what you did.”_

_“I don't remember. You keep giving me drugs, and I don't remember.”_

_“I would kill you right now, but I know that's what you want,” his father said, putting pressure on his windpipe. “So what we're going to do is sober you up, and when you are, you're going to tell me what you did with the money. I know you took it. I know you were the one to transfer it out of my accounts, and I know you were the one that messed with my damned inventory. I can tell your handwriting, boy. You're not half as good a forger as you think you are.”_

_“I didn't claim I was one,” JD said. Veronica could have done it. She was better than he was. At everything._

_Would he have gotten her back if he hadn't tried to blow up the school? Could he have ever convinced her to see him as more than a killer? Would knowing any of what his father had done to him change what he was? Or was he always going to be that monster she saw when she looked at him?_

_He told himself he didn't care about that. He swore he didn't. What she thought of him didn't matter. Nothing did anymore. He was dead, even if he was still alive, between the drugs and his father, and he didn't want to think or live._

_He wanted his father to suffer, but he knew that wouldn't happen._

_“I will take away the drugs and break every bone in your body,” his father said. “I will hurt you. I would like to.”_

_“I know how much you like it. You're sick.”_

_“What if I said I'd let you go if you told me where the money was?”_

_“You'd be lying.”_

_“I won't be able to hold you if I don't have the money. I won't be able to work. I was looking forward to our next city. I had it all planned. There was a wonderful spot for us, a place where we could do as much as we wanted undisturbed. Even the drugs might not be needed... no one would hear you scream there.”_

_JD shuddered. “You know telling me that just means that if I did know where the money was, I wouldn't tell you a damned thing.”_

_“You will. Once the drugs wear off, I'll make sure of it.”_

* * *

_He woke to screaming metal and pain, and he thought that his father must be trying to scare him again with the noise, but when he tried to move, it wasn't the drugs holding him in place, making him sluggish. His legs were pinned down by the dashboard of his father's car. If not for that, he would have fallen on his head._

_The car was upside down._

_The last thing he remembered was fighting with his father. He didn't remember getting in any cars, and he wouldn't have thought his father would have driven him in one. The van, maybe, because it was all painted up and no one could see inside, but the shitty Oldsmobile Delta 88 his father thought was something special?_

_Hell, no._

_He heard someone grunting, and he looked over to see his father. He hadn't been wearing his seatbelt when the car flipped, and he'd fallen onto the roof, a twisted mess of ugly track suit and blood, part of the car's frame sticking through his chest._

_“Dad?”_

_His father made a noise that didn't sound like a real word. JD winced and pushed on the dashboard, screaming when the plastic tore at his skin as it came up. He couldn't get it to do more than cut him, and he fell back, breathing through the pain and trying to calm himself again._

_He realized he was still belted in and unbuckled himself, laughing at his stupidity. He wasn't going anywhere. If the pressure kept up on his legs, he'd die a slow, painful death._

 _He'd been dying for years now. This was no different. The only time he'd felt alive since his mother died was when he was with Veronica, and even that didn't feel real now._

_He closed his eyes, trying to find a way to pass the time until he did die. He had to try and think. He knew he'd made hundreds of plans for stealing his father's money and ruining him, but he did not know if he had ever done it. The man was so angry it seemed like he must have, but he couldn't remember what he did with it, or where he put it._

_He would never have been able to go to a bank in person, and he couldn't fake his father's voice, so how could he have gotten the money away? It would have to be something he could have done without leaving the house, which was almost impossible, wasn't it?_

_Not if he'd arranged to buy something. He could have faked a purchase order for something ridiculously expensive, and when the check cleared, it would have taken all of his father's money, but why wouldn't his father have known that was the cause of it?_

_Unless... Could the money just have gone to some other company? Or another account?_

_He laughed. Oh, that was it, wasn't it? He'd transferred his father's money from the demolition company to the tax shelter, hadn't he? No one would have questioned that, since his father sent plenty of money there._

_He would have had to get out of the house to get at the money, but even just annoying his father by moving it where he didn't think to look was almost worth it, wasn't it?_

_“I hope you never figure it out, you bastard,” JD told him, smiling to himself. He liked knowing he'd managed to do something against his father, even if it was just a small thing._

 _He flipped Bud off with the finger the bastard had forced them to reattach, losing himself in laughter. The car shifted, and the dashboard cracked further along the bend holding his legs in place. He didn't have much time to react before it broke completely, freeing him and dropping him down onto the roof._

_JD swore as he hit, pain washing over his whole body. Everything hurt, bruises and bleeding cuts, and he bit his lip, trying to hold in another scream. He heard his father moan again, but he turned away, dragging himself out the mangled window._

_His hands scrapped the glass as he crawled along the pavement. He didn't know this road, had no idea where they were. His father had hit the guardrail and flipped them, though they could have gone down the hill and been dead at the bottom of it, so maybe they were lucky._

_It was going to be a bitch to get back to town, and he wasn't sure he could walk, but he sure as hell wasn't staying here._

_“I don't know if they'll find you. I don't care if they do,” he told his father, who almost looked like he was trying to reach for him. “Rot in hell, Pop. I'm sure I'll see you there soon enough.”_

_He made it two steps into the wooded area by the side of the road and collapsed. He didn't know if they were still in Sherwood, and he certainly was no Robin Hood, but it would be somewhat amusing to die here, out in the forest after stealing money from his father._

_He passed out with a smile on his face._

* * *

“I didn't kill him,” JD whispered. “I could have. I could have given him the mercy he never gave me, but I didn't. I left him there to die.”

He laughed then, starting to pace. “Oh, hell, I did kill him, didn't I? I could have tried to get him out, to get him help. I mean, I wasn't in good shape, but I could have done something. I didn't. I would have walked away and left him there. I sort of did. I passed out for a while, woke up when the emergency crews got there, and there's a bit of a blur after that... I may or may not have stolen some painkillers from the ambulance.”

Veronica bit her lip, fighting that part of her that wanted to go to his side and comfort him. She did want it, but she couldn't. What he'd admitted was still horrible, even if Big Bud had been a monster, and while a part of her didn't blame him for leaving his father like that, touching him was out of the question. She didn't trust either of them with that.

Enid, apparently, had no such qualms. She went to his side and wrapped her arms around him, holding on tight while he stood there, stiff as a board and just as awkward, like he'd never had anyone hug him before in his life.

“What are you doing? I thought we just shared a genetic donor.”

“We do, and it had to be the shitty one, but whatever,” Enid said. She shook her head. “Look, I'm not going to waste any tears on him after what he did to my mom, and while little miss agent over there might think you need to feel guilty about leaving him, I don't. I just want to know if we're done accusing each other of murder or not now.”

Veronica swallowed, looking at each of them in turn, and slowly shook her head. She knew she still had more questions, and while she'd hated Big Bud, she couldn't say that what JD had done was right.

If he was even telling the truth about any of that. _Ich Luge._ She would never be sure that he was telling the truth, would she?


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enid admits how she really ended up working for JD, and he makes things complicated again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was another where the story took a bit of a turn on me. I started with stuff I'd cut from the last chapter, and then JD may have overreacted but I liked his dialogue and then had to explain it and it was hard to find the right explanation, and I still don't like it much, but it was better than my other ideas, if hard to do.
> 
> And I couldn't find an ending until Veronica had her epiphany, and I'm still a bit annoyed with myself as this was not how it was supposed to go (it's time for a way overdue conversation about suspects other than the three of them,) but the ending was too good to resist, and I'm a weak person, obviously.

* * *

“I didn't lie,” JD said, and Veronica looked over at him. “When I said it was all done in Sherwood, it was. Even he was. It was the road outside the town, but close enough. What I told you was true, no matter what part I had in his death.”

Veronica winced. “I don't know that we will ever be at a point where I can trust you again.”

He lowered his head, and Enid put a hand on his shoulder, glaring at Veronica. For someone who said they only shared a bit of genetics, she cared a hell of a lot about him.

He pulled away from her, running a hand through his hair. “Stop it, Enid. You keep acting like I'm a good person, and I'm not. I used to like to believe I'm not actually a sociopath, but I am. I'm a terrible person. You should go, genetic donor or not, and forget all of this because you will only be disappointed.”

Veronica grimaced. That was a feeling she knew a little too well. She'd wanted the bad boy, but she'd fooled herself into thinking he was the bad boy with a heart of gold when he was actually a cold blooded killer.

Still, she said nothing of that, instead asking Enid, “How did you find JD?”

The other woman tensed. “Well, technically, I didn't find JD. I found the money.”

Veronica frowned, though that shouldn't surprise her. Everyone had believed JD was dead, and why would his long lost sister think he wasn't? There were a few obvious things about his Judas Dane act, but only if you knew him like she did. “Right. You were after child support.”

Enid shook her head. “No. I always figured after what that creep did, he got off easy, so... I went looking for a way he'd have to pay, even if he was dead by then. Only his will was this messed up thing he hadn't updated—it had clauses about sending his son off to live with this zoning official even though his son was supposedly dead at the time—and his money was all tied up in weird ways, too.”

“Yeah,” JD said, sounding raw about it after all this time. “He told me he'd made sure I wouldn't get a cent of his money if I did manage to kill him. That, and send me from one hell to another.”

“A zoning official?”

“Later a planning commissioner. Corrupt as hell,” Enid said. “And sick, too. Googling him made me need a week's worth of showers. Not that it mattered. By the time Big Bud died, there wasn't anything left of his company. The money was gone, and his equipment had been sold off.”

Veronica saw JD smile ever so slightly. “I take it that was you?”

“Apparently. My memory of doing it is pretty fuzzy, but I guess I managed to wire his funds to the accounts he used as tax shelters and he never figured it out. I also forged cancellations of some orders for supplies he needed and sold other equipment. That part is... even fuzzier.” JD rubbed at his head, and Veronica twisted her lip, trying to decide if this was real or not. He seemed confused, like he really couldn't remember it, but what if he was lying?

What if _both_ of them were lying? Did she even dare think that Enid was his sister and not his latest girlfriend slash accessory to murder?

“It might not have all been fake,” Enid told him. He watched her with the same disbelief Veronica felt. “I think Bud was forced to sell some of it to try and keep the company afloat. It didn't work, and that was why everyone accepted that he was drinking and wanted to die.”

JD shook his head. “That bastard would never have killed himself. He did like to drink, though. Wouldn't be surprised if he was drinking that night, but I don't remember... there's a gap between when he demanded I tell him where the money was and waking up after the accident.”

A gap. Convenient. JD could have done anything in that time, and he supposedly didn't remember it. Veronica had to get that file, read the whole accident report.

And find a way to test both of their DNA behind their back and without the FBI getting the results, either, which would be difficult. Still, maybe that would prove that JD was actually alive.

Not that she could trust him.

“How did you find the money?” Veronica asked Enid, needing the rest of that story, too, before she could do anything else.

“I managed to get myself a job in the records department of the bank the company used to use, and the paperwork on his account hadn't been shredded yet, by some miracle. They were backed up on old files, hired me for data entry to make digital copies of all that stuff. I found the transfer, found the records for that account, and tracked down the shell company. That took a bit because it was owned by a few dozen others, but eventually I found they had at least one real holding. This place.” Enid looked around her with a bit of a fond smile. “And the rest I already told you—I answered an ad, found myself involved with a surprisingly helpful fraud, and stayed on because I liked the work.”

Veronica folded her arms over her chest. “And never once bothered to tell him you were his sister?”

“Jason Dean was supposed to be dead.”

Veronica gestured to where JD stood. “Does he look dead to you?”

“Did he make it into any of the yearbooks in any of the schools he went to?” Enid countered. “Did he take any pictures with you? There is almost no proof that he ever existed—a couple of lines in articles about Bud Dean's company, incomplete school transcripts, and the blurbs in the papers in Sherwood about him being the fourth of the Westerburg suicides. I couldn't actually find his birth certificate.”

“Really,” Veronica said, looking over at him. He met her gaze, and she almost felt like she had to look away.

He shrugged. “What? You thought I would just leave that on file after I was officially dead? Why would I do that? I had no interest in anyone from my former life finding me.”

“Not even me?”

He grimaced. “There was only one way that would have ended, and I wasn't interested in seeing it play out.”

Veronica shook her head. “I'm not sure I believe any of this.”

“Again?” Enid rolled her eyes and turned to JD. “Forget her. She is not actually going to help anyone. Let's just... go get a slushie or something.”

A very, very stupid part of Veronica wanted to say that slushies were _their_ thing, but that wasn't true. She'd almost given them up after he died, and it had taken a while to drink one without the memories overwhelming her. She hadn't had one in a long time, telling herself she'd outgrown them.

“There is that nagging question of how you figured it out. Was it just the money? The initials?”

Enid shook her head, lifting her left hand and wiggling it. “We were both left-handed, and then you got shot stopping that sicko who was preying on kids and we had the same blood type... I got curious and had us tested at a private lab.”

“You do realize they compile databases with that stuff, right? That was an insane thing to do,” JD said. “Shit. This is why. This is why you don't trust anyone but yourself. People screw up, they fuck up in the worst possible ways, and there's nothing you can do to stop them or their stupidity.”

“JD,” Veronica began, not sure, even as much as she didn't get along with Enid, that his sister deserved any of that vitriol. “You—”

“I spent years living as much off the grid as I dared because of my... anti-social tendencies. I'm lucky I didn't turn into the Unibomber. I found a path that while not exactly the most ethical of routes kept me from doing a lot worse with my boredom and psychosis, all the while being very careful not to connect this life to that life. Shell companies on top of shell companies, this god awful office, the damned robes, staying the hell away from anyone and everywhere I've ever been in my life, and for what?” JD demanded. “For a sister I didn't know I had to come in and throw away everything because she got curious? Dad was right. That bastard said it. If you let people into your life, they either fuck you or they fuck you over. And you did. I should never have let you stay. I knew better. I _knew.”_

“You're dead,” Veronica reminded him. “No one is looking for you even if your DNA is on file somewhere.”

He shook his head. “I wasn't always masquerading as a damned psychic. It's been years since high school, and while I might not have killed anyone, that doesn't mean I didn't make enemies or that there aren't people that could use that against me.”

“You said no one was looking for you.”

“Yeah, and I lied.”

* * *

_Anti-hero. The person he'd been before the bombing would have loved that term. He would have thought it was what he was. He was the hero that wasn't supposed to be a hero, that didn't fit the stereotype and made his own morality._

_The person he was now knew a hell of a lot better. He was never anything close to the hero or anti-hero. He was just a jerk who somehow managed to keep surviving when he had no business doing it._

_His fingers twitched again, and he looked down at his hand, seeing the scar again. That thing always made him sick, though waiting was a pain in the ass, too. He knew better, and he'd be less in need of some kind of fix if he wasn't here._

_That twelve step program said he was supposed to do this, make amends for his past, undo the wrongs he'd done or try to atone for them, and who had he harmed more than Veronica? He couldn't count the others. They were dead, and while he might have decided he needed NA to fight the drugs his father had hooked him on after the bomb, he sure as hell wasn't going to their graves and apologizing._

_He wasn't going to stay on this wagon for very long, was he?_

_He caught sight of Veronica across the street, taking her seat at her friends' table. A little post high school reunion with Betty Finn and Martha Dunnstock. Good times. Not one she'd want interrupted by him, though he hardly intended to show himself to her here._

_Not now, not ever, he reminded himself. He would make his amends from a distance. That was the deal, otherwise he might as well finish what his father started. He turned away, putting his hands in his pockets and walking toward the parking garage. If he was right—and he figured he was, this guy textbook psychotic, which made him easy for JD to predict—then right about now, someone had found his way to her car._

_Veronica had left being an agent behind for the day, but that didn't mean that Salvo had. She'd been part of the team that put a huge dent in her organization, but he hadn't forgotten his roots, and he'd want to deal with her himself._

_He walked up to the car and shook his head. This didn't suit her, blue paint job or not. It was too generic and soulless. She should have something with a bit of personality, that hint of rebellion that he'd coaxed out of her for a bit. Even being a coupe didn't change the fact that this was exactly what she was trying to be: respectable and professional above all else._

_And the tinted windows were a definite mistake._

_He took his gun out of his pocket and opened the passenger door, taking a seat and pointing the gun at the lump behind the other chair. “I think you have the wrong car.”_

_“This is my car.”_

_“That would be more convincing if you weren't hiding in the backseat, waiting to kill her as soon as she sits down in the driver's seat,” JD told him. “You didn't think this through very well. It's a coupe. You kill her, how do you get out of the car?”_

_“Same way I'll deal with you, asshole.”_

_“No, you're going to get out, now, or I will shoot you. It's inconvenient, and I'd hate to have to give up this gun because I've kind of got attached to it now, but you're a waste of humanity even more so than the others I've killed, so... I won't be that disappointed.”_

_Salvo muttered something in his native tongue and then lunged for JD, stabbing his blade deep into his side. JD pulled the trigger on reflex, and the other man swore, shoving the seat forward and climbing out._

_JD rolled out of his own door, his hand over the wound, trying to stop the blood and noting with amusement that it wasn't far from one of the old scars. Veronica had shot him there. That was fitting, wasn't it?_

_Salvo fell down on the pavement, and JD walked over to him, standing above him with a smug sort of satisfaction. “So this can go one of two ways. I can finish you off here, or I can let someone find your worthless hide. Which do you prefer?”_

_“Who the hell are you?”_

_“Oh, that's the fun part,” JD said, smiling. “I'm a ghost.”_

_Salvo started cursing him again, and JD ignored him. A part of him said that finishing off the bastard was the best option. He couldn't hurt anyone else that way, and he couldn't tell them what he'd seen or who, but he didn't._

_He'd decided he was done killing. He'd done enough of that, and he'd had time to think about it while getting clean. He wasn't doing that again. No killing. He'd end up using again if he did, and he was going sober._

_He wasn't sure why, but he'd chosen this, and he had to stick with it._

_“No, stay there,” he heard Veronica call, and he looked over to see her waving off her friends. “I'll just be a minute. I need to get something out of my car.”_

_He reached down and pulled Salvo's wallet out of his pocket, taking out the cash and dropping it back on the ground. “Cheap bastard.”_

_Salvo flipped him off and kicked his leg. JD stumbled and swore, muttering under his breath as he stood back up._

_“Hey, stop,” Veronica called, “FBI. Stop. Now.”_

_He didn't. He ran, knowing he couldn't let her see him. He went around the corner, dropping the gun in the first trash can he saw. It wasn't registered to him, so he didn't need to find a better hiding place for it. He pulled off the gloves and left them in the next bin. He stopped by a homeless man and passed him the jacket and what little cash Salvo had._

_He untucked his shirt as he walked, letting it fall loose to cover the wound in his side—thank goodness for his penchant for black—and ditched his hat around the next corner. There. He didn't think they could ever connect him to this. Veronica would never know he was alive._

_And while it wouldn't stop Salvo forever, JD would make sure he never got close again._

* * *

_“I don't like this,” Veronica said. “It doesn't make any sense that Salvo just happened to get mugged two feet from my car. And if he did, why didn't I hear the shot? I was coming around the corner with my friends. I should have seen it, but I barely got a glimpse of the man running away. He was wearing a bomber jacket and a hat.”_

_“Key words being _was,”_ one of the other agents said. “Uniform just picked up a homeless guy wearing a bomber jacket with blood on it. And they found this hat in a trash can around the corner.”_

_Richards shook his head. “There has to be more than that. What about security cameras for the garage and any of the shops around here?”_

_“We're working on it.”_

_“Let me see that jacket,” Veronica said. For some reason, her mind was on another kind of jacket, a dark trench coat, but that wasn't what she'd seen, and she knew it. She had thought—oh, hell. “I saw him. Standing outside the restaurant. It was just a passing thing. I saw him go into the garage.”_

_“And he met with Salvo, their drug deal went bad, and boom, one bad guy ends up shot and if we're lucky, he dies,” the other agent said, shrugging. “Looks like you caught a break, Sawyer. Salvo's got a reputation for retaliation.”_

_She glared at him. Not only was it only a few days before it was no longer going to be Sawyer, but she knew the Salvo case better than anyone. “He was here to do something to my car.”_

_Richards frowned. “Don't get paranoid now.”_

_“He was found two feet from my car,” she repeated, shoving past the others and going to her car. She opened the door and spotted it right away. “There's blood on the front seat. Someone was in here.”_

_“Then we have evidence. We can get this bastard.”_

_She wanted to believe that. If Salvo lived, he'd try again. Except... why was the blood in the front seat when she would have seen him before she even got in the car. The windows were tinted, but no so much that the other seat wasn't visible._

_She would have thought back seat, but then—wait. Both of them in her car? Was that possible?_

_“What if the blood on that jacket isn't Salvo's?”_

_“You think our guy got hit?”_

_She nodded. “I think he was the one in the front seat, and we may have to find a bullet somewhere in the back.”_

_“Nice work,” Richards told her, but she didn't find it all comforting. Someone out there had been willing to kill her enemy, and that reminded her of only one person in this world._

_Someone who should be dead._

* * *

“Damn it, JD.”

“No one was looking for Jason Dean or Judas Dane,” Enid said, “but that didn't mean they weren't looking for whoever you were in between them. Right?”

He gave her a death glare, and Veronica swallowed. That was never a good look from him. “Your faith in me remains as pathetic as it is misguided. We don't share good DNA. I'm poison. I destroy lives. Dad beat the hell out of a kid because he dared to think he could be my friend. Then there's you. Look at yourself. You were in college once. Now you work with me defrauding people and breaking the law almost daily with all that hacking. And that's tame compared to what I brought into Veronica's life. Don't bother saying you weren't good, that it was all about Big Bud's money. You just hugged me after I admitted to leaving the bastard to die. Me. You care when you know damned well you shouldn't.”

“Then tell us what horrible thing you did before you were a fake psychic,” she countered. “Or am I right in thinking that you were the victim in that one, too?”

He ran a hand over his face. “No, I was not the victim. No, I will not discuss it. Just assume I did something very stupid and leave it at that.”

“You know that won't work with her,” Enid said, jerking a thumb toward Veronica. “Every little bit you leave out is somehow proof you're a murderer.”

“I didn't kill anyone.”

Veronica snorted. That she knew wasn't true. “JD—”

“Screw this. I am done having everything I say questioned. I didn't kill those girls, I did more than I should have in warning you, and between the two of you, you ruined my operation here, so I'm leaving,” he muttered, grabbing the bag he'd been packing and going toward the door.

“I'll find you again,” Enid said. “I can do it. You know I can trace you. It's what I do.”

He reached over and patted her on the head. “You're cute, baby sis, but I took out a large part of the money in cash a long time ago, and you have no idea where I put it, so have fun trying to trace that.”

She shook her head. “You can't go. What about saving your girlfriend's life? She's been threatened. You're supposed to be saving her because you never got over her or some crap like that.”

“Niddie, you read too many romance novels.”

“Screw you.”

“No thank you. I may be a psychopath or a sociopath or both, but even I draw the line at incest,” he told her, and she gagged, not managing another protest as he went for the outer door.

Sputtering, Enid turned back to her. “Aren't you going to do something?”

“What, run and tackle him?” Veronica didn't trust her legs to function properly at the moment. She was a mess, and a part of her was willing to let him leave and never come back. “If he really has changed and he's the person you think he is instead of the person I remember him as when he... 'died,' then he won't go far.”

“He's not going to go for a slushie or to the bar this time,” Enid said. She started pacing. “Damn it, this was why I didn't want to tell him. I knew he'd freak out and leave. He doesn't know how to take people caring about him or even just being nice to him. Every time I do, I'm too innocent for this world and my own good.”

“Hardly,” Veronica muttered, and Enid flipped her off. Veronica ignored it. Neither one of them was a saint, and the jury was still out on whether or not Enid had killed anyone. “You know where he lives, don't you?”

Enid nodded. “Yes, but if you'd seen it... well, I doubt he has anything there he cares about, and on purpose, too.”

Veronica nodded, thinking of the house with the still packed moving boxes sitting everywhere. JD was used to moving in a hurry, and even with his semi-respectable business, he'd be ready for that at a moment's notice. Still... she didn't see how the DNA could lead anyone to him with all he'd done to obscure who he was and keep his original identity dead.

And then she swore. “How many times has he pissed you off just go confront someone he suspects on his own?”

Enid paled, giving Veronica all the answer she needed.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica and Enid discuss suspects and the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of this brainstorming was meant to be done between JD and Veronica. Then he ruined everything, so... it is now this.

* * *

“I haven't had one of these in years,” Veronica said, looking down at the slushie Enid had just given her. She didn't try and drink any of it. She didn't know that she could. Slushies were synonymous with JD, and Veronica's feelings there were always mixed. She should just hate him. He was a killer, and he would have killed her if she hadn't faked her own suicide. Only a part of her seemed glad he was alive, and that same part of her was worried that he was going to do something stupid and get himself killed.

“I never thought much of them myself,” Enid said, studying her own slushie. “And then I started working with him, and he's like an addict. He even got me hooked. Bastard.”

Veronica managed an awkward smile. “Any more thoughts on where he might be?”

Enid leaned back against the chair. “Not really. I already knew he wasn't going to be at the convenience store, and I don't think he'd go drinking, especially not if you're right and he's got someone in mind for the killer. He's not going to be at his apartment, but we already discussed that.”

She took a sip from her drink and winced, apparently getting a brain freeze. Veronica laughed, and Enid glared back at her, flipping her off again.

“And you're sure he's got nothing we can track.”

“His car is older than I am,” Enid answered. “No computer, no GPS. It might even be old enough to need a lead substitute. And he doesn't carry a cellphone, not even a burner. That was my job, to have the phone and keep the messages and everything. He wasn't kidding about being more or less off the grid. I doubt he has any credit cards, though he does have the bank account.”

“Only he says he has money he can use that you can't track, and knowing him, that's probably not a lie,” Veronica said. She was almost sure of it, since he was the kind of person whose backup plan had a backup plan. She didn't want to think about what it might have been if she hadn't gone through with shooting Kurt. “So we have nothing.”

Enid shook her head. “Not necessarily. If your theory is right, then he figured out something while we were talking. Not entirely surprising—I think he's one of those people whose brains is constantly going in three or four different directions—he does that all the time. He also rarely tells anyone when he does, saves it up for this elaborate reveal later. He's got a real flare for the dramatic.”

Veronica nodded. “You have no idea.”

Enid shrugged. “So you do. Wait. That's it. He must have figured out the connection. The part that didn't make sense before. He made the connection. Somehow he tied the person who's targeting you to the phantom lover.”

Veronica sipped from her slushie, trying to understand that. “I don't see it. I lost contact with just about everyone from back then. Oh, I get emails every now and then from Betty or Martha, the usual Christmas updates like everyone does, and both of the Heathers added me on Facebook years ago, but since I don't really use it, I don't talk to them.”

“All we need is someone with a grudge against you who could pass themselves off as an acceptable lover for a teenage girl,” Enid said. “That list has to be pretty small, right?”

“More like non-existent.” Veronica shook her head. “I had a few cases get that bad, but the men involved were older, and they had that vibe that set off a creep radar a mile away. They were just... obvious. No teenage girl would fall for it once she'd actually met them.”

“Teenagers can be stupid,” Enid reminded her. “Or need I remind you that you dated my brother?”

“That was different. He was this seemingly beautiful bad boy, different from all the other losers. He seemed so damned cool, and I did fall for his act, but he was still a teenager. It wasn't like I met him pretending to be someone my age and then took off with him even though he was older. He was hot. He was dangerous. He was everything I thought I wanted even if he was in high school.”

“Right.”

“You don't have any room to talk. You stayed working with him knowing he was a con artist with a tacky act. That robe is awful, and some of the stuff he says shouldn't convince the most die-hard of believers. Though... him saying the spirits were assholes _was_ funny.”

Enid smiled. “Yeah, he's got a wicked sense of humor.”

That was one way of putting it. Veronica put a hand to her head, trying to focus. “I don't know what connection he could have made. He told me that he thought this was happening because someone knew Heather didn't kill herself, but I don't know how that's possible because the only ones that know that are me and him.”

“Which makes you suspect him all over again, but seriously... There's a part of me that's almost sure he's still in love with you, and even if he's not and he wanted to hurt you, he wouldn't have to go to all this trouble. He could just have showed up at any time. He could have screwed with you for months and driven you insane using only himself. He didn't need to kill anyone, but he could have if he wanted to. You could be dead several times over by now. You're not. He threw away his whole psychic act to save you.”

Veronica didn't want to think about that. She couldn't. She didn't want to think about him still having feelings for her. With JD, feelings tended to be dangerous things.

Enid looked at her. “Wait. What did you mean—Heather's death wasn't a suicide?”

* * *

_Veronica told herself it was just about comfort. She wanted to be held, and she hadn't really felt anything quite like when JD had held her after their game of strip croquet. Parents were the ones that gave you hugs when you were younger, but there came this point where you thought you outgrew them. She didn't think her parents understood her at all, and she knew they didn't see past any of the Heathers. They thought Heather was a great person, didn't see her for the witch she was._

_Was. That was the appropriate word, wasn't it? Heather was gone, and they'd killed her. She and JD had killed her. It was an accident, but if they'd been more careful, if he hadn't poured the drain cleaner in the mug in the first place, if she'd emptied it or gotten him to, or if she hadn't used the same kind of mug for her pathetic upchuck recipe, Heather would be alive._

_And instead of running far from JD and the mistake she'd made, instead of admitting to it and telling everyone the truth, she'd let him talk her into a suicide note._

_She was lying in his arms, taking comfort from his presence and his hold. She felt safe, the same way she used to when her father would lift her up when she was crying and wipe away the tears or when her mother would rush in with “Mommy's here.”_

_She knew it wasn't the same. JD wasn't family, and she'd committed murder with him. Unintentional murder, so manslaughter, she supposed, but it was still a death on their hands. They were guilty._

_Being here, she felt calm and peaceful, and she supposed part of that was because she was completely sated, worn out not just emotionally but physically. He was already asleep while her mind kept on racing._

_“Is it wrong to feel good now?”_

_JD's hold tightened on her as he mumbled, sounding more asleep than awake. “One thing I've learned is that you have to take the good when you can. Life's messed up. It's all pain, but there are some moments... and moments are all we get right now. We're not free to make them more. Not even sure I'd know how to if I was.”_

_She lifted her head and looked at him, frowning. “JD, please tell me that suicide note wasn't so good because you wanted to kill yourself.”_

_“Okay, I won't tell you that,” he said, giving her a bit of a smile. “You smell nice. So much better than sleeping next to someone reeking of beer.”_

_Veronica's stomach twisted up. “Your last girlfriend drank a lot?”_

_“Does this make you my girlfriend?” he asked, sound a hell of a lot more awake. “I think I like that. Shouldn't, but I do.”_

_“Oh, yeah, the 'I don't care about anything' attitude required of all bad boys. By the way, you're really, really bad at the not caring. You care. I can tell.”_

_"Maybe about you," he said, and there was a strange expression on his face when he looked at her. “I'm not sorry she's dead.”_

_Veronica wasn't, but she was. She didn't know what she felt. She buried her face in his chest again. “Hold me.”_

_“I am.”_

_“Tighter.”_

_“I won't let you go. I swear.”_

* * *

“You killed Heather Chandler?”

Veronica grimaced. “It was an accident. I told you that.”

Enid nodded. “Okay, so it was an accident. You know that covering it up was a crime, right? I'm sure if anyone did know about that, they'd want you to pay for it. Jay's safe. He died, but you? You got away with it. With murder.”

Veronica flinched. She had, but she'd tried to change things, to do good with her life. She'd become an agent to help people, to make it so that she did something to set right what she'd done wrong. “It was an accident. Though... sometimes I wonder... If he knew. I grabbed the wrong cup, but he offered to carry it to her. He handed it to her. He knew, didn't he?”

Enid drew in a breath and let it out. “I don't know. I wasn't there. I was back in Vegas with my mom and a bit busy with My Little Pony at the time.”

“My Little Pony?”

“I wanted Transformers, but my mother thought they were inappropriate for a little girl, so I got ponies,” Enid said, defensive. “And they're even more popular now than they were when I was a little girl, not that you have any right to judge me. You killed people.”

“On accident,” Veronica insisted, though she wasn't about to tell Enid about Kurt and Ram.

Enid rolled her eyes. “Fine. Back to the idea of someone knowing about Heather Chandler's death. Only the two of you were there that day, right?”

“Right. No, three, if you count Heather, but she died. No one knew we were there. No one questioned her 'suicide.' Not once. Everyone said they couldn't believe it, that they hadn't known she was that troubled, but they ate it up. She was more popular in death than she ever was in life, and that was just insane.”

“They made a martyr of her. Funny how that always twists who people are in life.”

Veronica looked over at her. “You seem to know that from experience.”

Enid shook her head. “It's stupid. I'm not even sure it was that so much as what she wanted to believe at that point. And it's not relevant. We're supposed to be finding my brother before he does something stupid and someone dies.”

Veronica grimaced. She didn't want anyone else to die, even if someone had killed five girls to punish her for Heather's death. She didn't know why they hadn't just killed her.

Unless... “What if he was wrong?”

“What?”

“Nothing. It's stupid.”

Enid sighed. “Are we really playing that game?”

“No.”

“Good.” Enid took another long sip from her slushie, making a face. “Ew. It's starting to melt and get all watery. I hate that. Okay... so let's think about it this way—who would have had any reason to believe you were a part of Heather's death if they suspected it wasn't a suicide? Why would they think that?”

“Well, it depends on if Heather told anyone she was going to ruin me after the Remington party. If they knew she'd intended to, then they'd have thought about it, but she would probably only have told the Heathers that, and neither of them acted like they knew. They both knew about the forgeries, though. It was how I got into the clique, a fake hall pass, and Heather Chandler turned it into a game, having me write letters pretending to be from popular kids to the unpopular ones. I did one I'm still ashamed of... I wrote Martha pretending I was Kurt Kelly and liked her. She asked him about it in the lunchroom and was humiliated. She later tried to kill herself.”

“You know, you could almost have a place in our little fraud if you weren't so annoying,” Enid said, and Veronica glared at her. “It's not all bad. Jay used a fake journal to expose the people that hounded that old man to death and stole his money by altering his will. He wrote all these entries about the abuse they'd given the old guy and how he knew they were going to kill him and he'd hidden the journal hoping someday his family would know the truth... They panicked, got caught by the police fleeing town, and confessed everything.”

Veronica had to admit, it sounded like a bit of poetic justice, and not something that they'd have proved by strictly legal means. Still, it didn't make it right or mean she forgave JD.

“So the other Heathers. Did you ever show this talent for forgery to anyone else?”

Veronica shook her head. “Just JD. After he died... I stopped. I stopped a lot of things that were connected to him and to Heather. I swore I'd do better, and I tried.”

Enid said nothing, going back to her slushie. She finished it with another grimace, the straw making that annoying noise before she set it aside. “Okay, so that leaves us with... what, two people that could have suspected your part in the murder?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know if anyone was paying close enough attention that day, but I wrote the note in the cafeteria, and Heather McNamara put it on her tray. It might have been obvious to everyone there after Martha spoke to Kurt. If your brother was here, we'd just ask him. He'd know how likely it was others connected it, since I'm almost sure he did. He never really said, but he was sure Heather deserved to die.”

“Two people. The Heathers. So... Did either of them happen to have... oh, I don't know... children?”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enid and Veronica discuss the likelihood of their suspects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally found a place where the one flashback almost fit, since I was tying in the dynamics of parents and children and how far they'd go for them. It is a bit of a stretch for the one, but I wanted to use it. The other one came rather against my will, and it was unpleasant.
> 
> Veronica actually had the other thought in the last chapter, but I thought it was too soon to voice it then, so I waited one more chapter for it.

* * *

_“Did you ever love her?” JD asked, not looking at his father as he spoke. The rain was coming down the window, drop after drop, fast and constant, like the tears he wanted to shed but couldn't anymore. Sometime after he'd passed out and woken up again and passed out a second time, all the tears were gone._

_His mother was dead, and his father was a monster._

_Everything after they got home, after she was dead, it was one mess of pain, and he felt dirty and ashamed along with it, unable to do anything but take what his father had done. He'd fought for maybe two minutes at first, but it hadn't lasted. He couldn't last. He couldn't do anything._

_“Come on. Get dressed for the damned funeral.”_

_JD looked back at him, not understanding. “How can I go there? You hurt me.”_

_“I didn't mess up that pretty face of yours, now did I?” Big Bud asked, and JD shuddered as his father reached over to touch his cheek. “Put on a little suit, and no one will know a thing. You'll be very cute, won't you?”_

_Cute was for when he was younger, when his mother was alive and playing with his hair, not when she was dead and his father made him wish he was._

_“I miss her,” JD whispered, wishing there was a way to make it so she came back, so she was the one alive and not his father. His father had been so mean, had hurt him and made him think he was going to die, and he wondered if it was like that for her when she did._

_Why hadn't she taken him with her?_

_“You need to forget her,” Big Bud told him. “Funerals are the last thing you do for a parent, and that's what this is. She's dead, and you just forget her now. You don't need to miss her. You have me, and I'm all you need.”_

_“You don't even care that she's dead, do you?” JD asked, and that time his father did hit his face, slapping him so hard he bit his cheek and it started bleeding._

_“Get up and get dressed,” his father ordered. “Now.”_

_JD spat at him, and it all started again, his father hitting him and holding him down to make him hurt all over again. He couldn't get up, couldn't get free, and the rain just poured on and on._

* * *

“You think that someone's kid would kill for them like that?” Veronica asked, feeling sick all over again. She didn't know why anyone would go that far, not in this case. “I understand it when it's to protect them or to avenge them or even because they hated them and wanted to frame them, but to kill five girls because they wanted revenge against me? That's a lot to ask of a child, a lot to be willing to do, and I've seen a lot as an agent, but that?”

Enid shrugged. “It's crazy, but since when is murder supposed to be sane?”

Veronica grimaced. That was true to a point, but some people killed for their country, fighting in wars. Some people killed to protect others, like policemen and agents. Some battered spouses killed to defend themselves or their children. Those deaths had reasons. They'd be considered sane, though arguably not murders, either. 

JD had reasons for his killings. He'd tried to justify them. She had heard those reasons, and she hadn't accepted them—they were crazy. Still, they made more sense than a child committing murder for a parent, killing innocent girls to get revenge against her.

“It seems so... elaborate,” Veronica said. “I don't understand. You said it yourself about JD doing this. Why, if they're after me, didn't they just come after me? Why stage Heather's death over and over again?”

Enid rubbed her forehead. “He'd probably have a good explanation for that. He likes those psychology books, and he'd have some technical term for it. My best guess, based on some of the stuff we've dealt with before, is that whoever it is—probably one of these Heathers—wanted you to suffer before they killed you. Someone who waited this long for revenge is... patient. They'd have been working on it for so long, nursing this grudge against you, and they... Well, hell, they probably screwed this kid of theirs up so badly from the beginning, making them into a killer all along.”

Veronica gagged. She didn't want to believe that anyone was capable of that, though she knew they were. Some trained their children into killers. Others, like Big Bud, helped push them over the edge, whether they meant to or not. “That's so sick.”

“You knew those girls. Which one of them would do it?”

“The obvious choice is Heather Duke,” Veronica said, thinking back to the other girl's attempt to take over Heather Chandler's role, how she'd been gleeful with delight at the prospect of ruining Heather McNamara. She had almost driven the other Heather to suicide. “She tried to be the megabitch with the scrunchie after Heather Chandler died. At your brother's urging, I might add, but she wasn't half as popular or as powerful as Chandler was. She used to walk around with her nose in a book, hiding away, and the strain of being popular was so bad she'd developed bulimia. Heather Chandler used to give her a hard time about it. She would have cracked. And she sort of did when I took the scrunchie and declared myself the new sheriff.”

“Seriously?”

“Your brother gave me a concussion and I watched him blow himself up. I wasn't exactly in a fit state for anything,” Veronica said. “I think I was still in shock, but I told myself that I'd take the clean slate he'd created and try and make my school a better place. I befriended Martha, renewed my friendship with Betty Finn...”

“Got away with murder,” Enid finished for her, and Veronica turned to glare at her. The other woman didn't seem at all bothered by the look. “Don't pretend you didn't. You just admitted to it, even if it probably would have ended up a lesser charge like manslaughter, and whether you like it or not, that is very likely the motive for these new murders. Someone does not like that you got away with it.”

Veronica sighed. There was no point in arguing that she'd suffered every day since or that she'd tried to do something good with her life to make up for it. She'd wanted to do better, to make up for what she'd done, but she knew—had always known—that she never could.

“Just find out if Heather Duke had any children.”

* * *

_“What the hell do you think you're doing?” Big Bud demanded, and JD looked up with a frown. He knew his father's actions never made sense. He couldn't pretend to understand them, and he'd given up on trying, knowing that it didn't make any difference. He disobeyed the rules, he got hurt. He obeyed the rules, he still got hurt. There was no point in doing anything._

_JD was only still here because he wouldn't let his father win when he did kill himself. He would not give the bastard the satisfaction of pulling that trigger and ending his own life. If Bud wanted him dead, then he was going to have to do it himself._

_Still, he hadn't expected that reaction, not when it seemed kind of obvious to him what he was doing. “Homework. Math, specifically.”_

_His father stared at him, that blank, dangerous look that could mean almost anything. JD found it terrifying, but he forced himself not to let it show. He would get hurt then, though it was unavoidable, and he knew it. His father only came near him when he wanted to cause him pain._

_“What happened at work today? Was it like Aberdeen?”_

_He shouldn't have asked, but he would have some idea of how bad the beating would get if his father was upset about someone trying to block his demolition. Nothing made his father madder than having a demo blocked. Those were the nights that JD thought he'd die, and somehow he hadn't. He still didn't know why._

_“Get up.”_

_JD thought about disobeying, and he wanted to, but he also didn't want his father to get blood all over his textbooks. That wasn't easily explained, even if the damned teachers never believed the truth. He only ended up in more trouble for his “lies.”_

_He swallowed, standing up, and his father pulled him over by the arm. He kept hold of him so hard that JD knew he'd have bruises tomorrow like the man's hand._

_“Come on,” Bud said, dragging him out of the room. JD started to pull back. He had thought he could do this, that he could take whatever was coming, but he couldn't. He knew somehow it was going to be worse than usual, and he wouldn't go out there._

_“Let go,” JD said, and Bud's grip tightened enough where he couldn't feel his hand. “Please.”_

_Bud ignored him, forcing him forward into the other room. “Jason, this is Mr. Woods of the zoning commission. Mr. Woods is going to decide if we get to build our new apartment complex or if that rat infested tenement is a historical monument. Mr. Woods, this is my son, Jason.”_

_JD looked at his father, confused. Why would Bud show anyone else how things really were in their house? It wasn't like he hadn't been forced out here._

_Woods smiled from the couch, not getting up. “Your father and I have done business before, but it's nice to finally meet you.”_

_JD nodded, not sure what any of this was._

_“It's so good when children take an interest in their parent's work,” Woods went on, and this time he did stand up, coming close to JD. “I hear you're very involved in things.”_

_“Not really.” His father didn't want him having any skills that he could use against him, though he'd talked of his bombs enough to where JD was pretty sure he could build one on his own._

_“That's not true, Jason,” his father said in his ear. “You're going to be a very valuable part of this business. I just know you are. You're my son.”_

_JD didn't bother telling him he'd burn down the construction company gladly and dance as he watched the flames, maybe even toast some marshmallows._

_“And because you're my son, you're going to do whatever it is Mr. Woods here wants you to do.”_

* * *

“Heather Duke has two children, a boy and a girl,” Enid said, looking over her tablet. Veronica watched her, wondering what she was leaving out. She hadn't seen pictures, didn't have names. What was Heather's now? Had she taken her husband's or was she one that hyphenated it? Veronica figured it was the hyphen, but that didn't explain the children. Could one of them be a murderer? Could Heather have helped turn them into that? “Both of them could probably pass for the age that this phantom lover was supposed to be.”

“I suppose you think that's our answer, then.”

Enid shrugged, setting down the tablet. Veronica eyed it, tempted to grab it for herself. “It might have been the conclusion he reached, but Heather McNamara has four kids, two boys and two girls, and the older two are the right age. The third might even pass for it. Doubt the fourth could pull it off, but you never know.”

Veronica frowned. “I thought we agreed that Heather Duke was the likely suspect.”

“It's never the person you suspect in these things,” Enid said with a strange amount of conviction as she did. “When it's obvious, it's always a red herring. That's what they do on all those shows and movies. It can't be the one you think it is. That's some kind of rule to make the cops and FBI seem more intelligent than they are.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, when you miss the obvious ones, you look like idiots, so there's always a reason why the obvious one didn't do it and someone else, someone unrelated, was the one who did do it.”

“I cannot believe we are basing our decisions on killers on fictional television shows,” Veronica muttered. “That's not really how he does this, is it?”

“No, I told you—Jay has all the books and the understanding of criminals. He'd have a better explanation for it than some kind of plot device,” Enid said, and then she grimaced. “Though... according to plot rules, the killer would so be me, and I didn't do this.”

“That's the blood you share,” Veronica told her. “Big Bud was your father, and he was a creep. Even if he didn't kill his wife, he did enough to drive her to suicide. You could probably argue that he drove your brother to murder. Not that JD's not responsible for his own decisions, but would he have thought to fake Heather's suicide if not for your father? That's hard to say.”

“Genetic donor,” Enid insisted. “That man was never in any way that mattered my father. I don't even think you could say he was for my brother, but he definitely wasn't for me. He wasn't there, not once, when I was growing up, not that anyone would have wanted him around.”

“Your mother never told him about you.”

Enid shook her head. “Why the hell would she? He was just another drunk high roller who thought all the women who worked in the casinos were easy. That's not important now. What is important is whether or not we are going to see either one of your so-called friends and see if their children had anything to do with those murders.”

“I should give this to Richards.”

“You know you can't,” Enid said, and Veronica wanted to argue that. She had procedure to follow, and Enid was not an agent. She wasn't even the fake psychic. “Not when you've lied about your part in Heather Chandler's death for years. Not to mention that I'm not willing to give my brother over to him since everyone's going to assume he's killing for you again and shoot him on sight if he is there. No. We're in this together, like it or not, so are we going for that drive now?”

Veronica knew if she went back to her apartment, Richards would be there. He'd lock her away for her own protection. And she didn't know that she could let anything happen to JD, either. As complicated as their relationship was and as much as she didn't want him killing anyone, she didn't want him dead.

She tried to ignore the implications of that and swallowed down the lump in her throat. “Are you sure Big Bud is dead?”

“What, you think he's behind this? Because Jay got away from him? That's a little extreme, don't you think? Why go after teenage girls? Why target you? There's no way to know if he knew about your little 'accident' with Heather at all.”

Veronica nodded. “I know, but... if this wasn't about me, and it was about JD, then about the only chance anyone would have of drawing him out in the open would be targeting me, and if someone _did_ know we were in it together, they'd get revenge on us both.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enid and Veronica continue to discuss theories and suspects as they drive to see the Heathers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, the plan was to go straight to the part with the Heathers, but then there were other questions to answer, and the one flashback was kind of sweet, the other a bit overdue, and it all kind of came together, I hope.

* * *

“Here's the report on Big Bud's accident,” Enid said, passing Veronica the tablet. “And the autopsy files. I've had them for years, but we can go verify them with the county if you want to, since we'll be in the area. He's dead. He didn't do all this to get Jay back. Thank God. I don't think I want to know what I'd do to that bastard if he was still alive.”

Veronica took the tablet, sighing as she did. “I'm not sure I want to know why you have this.”

“I needed to know he was dead,” Enid said, and Veronica frowned at her. “Stop looking at me like that. If I have to spell it out for you, I'll leave you here instead of taking you to see the Heathers. It almost seems like I'd be better off on my own.”

“Sorry,” Veronica muttered, but Enid ignored it. That really was inadequate for the implication, though with what Veronica sensed from Big Bud, she didn't know why she hadn't seen it sooner. Her mother hadn't dated the man. Enid wasn't after revenge because he was a deadbeat. She wanted him to pay for the crime that caused her existence.

“She did tell me later he wasn't that bad of a man, so maybe she was just bitter when she said that other stuff. She was drunk, so...” Enid shook her head, uncomfortable. “I don't know. All I know is that I needed to do something about it.”

Veronica nodded. “Um... JD wouldn't have told you if there was anyone else like that in his life that would want revenge.”

Enid rolled her eyes before starting the car. “You were standing right there when he refused to tell us both what he might have done in between his years as Jason Dean and Judas Dane that would make DNA a problem for him,” Enid reminded her. “Though you'd be correct in thinking that he told me next to nothing of his past before you showed up. I had a few things that helped me figure out he was actually my brother, and he let a few other minor details slip when he was talking about how he knew how to do stuff when we worked cases—the story of how he learned lockpicking was kind of funny, if now something I completely don't believe—but that was it. No mentions of parents or anything else.”

“Ex-girlfriends?”

“Jealous much?” Enid asked, pulling out of the lot, and Veronica glared at her. She was asking because someone who wanted to ruin someone probably had strong feelings about that person, and that tended to mean family or significant other, though not always. “He doesn't really date. There's been more than one person over the years who found him very charming and wanted to see more of him, but if it even got to one date, it didn't seem to ever go past that, especially not if that person thought he was genuine. He never let them see the side that was a fraud.”

“No one else?”

“You really want this to be about him, don't you?”

Veronica grimaced. While on the one hand it would be nice not to be the one responsible for all these deaths—three had already been too much for her conscience, and while she'd tried, she never cleared it before adding more thanks to the bureau—it wasn't just about that. “I know Heather Duke tried to become as bad as Heather Chandler was, and like I said, she did almost drive Heather McNamara to suicide, but it's hard to believe she'd do all this to get at me. Heather Chandler's death would have been a relief to her. She was being bullied into bulimia, and Heather McNamara wasn't in a much better state, so why seek revenge for Heather Chandler?”

“Maybe it wasn't about her. You were the new sheriff.”

That got a wince. “I know, but it wasn't like I had control for all that long. I shifted my focus, chose to graduate early instead of sticking around where all of that had gone down.”

“What was that?” Enid asked. “That little scoffing noise you made at the end there?”

“Oh, I was just remembering what I told your brother about them wanting to move me up grades,” Veronica answered, a bit amused. “When I was in the sixth, they found I was some kind of 'genius' and wanted to put me up at high school level. My parents and I decided not to do it because I'd have trouble making friends and stuff. I think I backed out because I was scared to leave Betty behind. I told him I ended up using that genius IQ to decide on lip gloss and how to fit in three keggers before curfew.”

“I use my genius IQ to hack into just about anything to help a fake psychic.”

Veronica laughed a little. They were a bit of a pair in some sense. Not so much in others. “What is up with Richards and the Rosebud thing, anyway?”

Enid grimaced. “Couldn't you have asked how I knew about your husband's boring bedroom habits?”

“I didn't want to know, to be perfectly honest,” Veronica said, because there was no good reason and anything more she heard on that subject would just be creepy, “and seriously, why would you give that information to JD?”

“I didn't. He already knew.”

Veronica gagged. “How the hell would he know about that?”

* * *

_JD set the flower vase on the table next to the hospital bed, bumping the IV with his elbow and grimacing. He still hated those damned things after all his father had done, but without that, he wouldn't have dared come anywhere near this place._

_He'd slipped again, fallen off the wagon, and he knew it. He wasn't supposed to be anywhere near Veronica, but he'd heard she'd been shot in some warehouse and almost lost it. He shouldn't have. He wanted to hate her after all this time, after the bullets and the months of hell with his father, after the addiction he was still trying to fight, but he didn't hate her._

_He didn't know what he felt anymore. He knew, from the books he'd read, that he wasn't supposed to be capable of love, so it wasn't that, and she was married now to someone else. She'd moved on with her life, but he still worried about her._

_He owed her, in some sense, because without her, he'd still be a killer. She'd stopped him that day in the boiler room, and he'd chosen to end it with a clean slate and a bomb. His father had denied him that death, but since he'd lived, he'd had to decide what to do with his life, and that had somehow led him back to her and what things might have been like if Heather Chandler never died._

__Grow up, be adults, and die. _Somewhere in there she probably included traditional values like kids and marriage, but he didn't know for sure, and he didn't think he was meant for either of those things. He sure as hell didn't think passing on the predisposition to psychosis that was in his genes on down to a child was at all fair._

_He gave her another look and told himself it was time to go. He wanted to touch her, but he knew he didn't dare. “Bye, Ronnie.”_

_“JD?”_

_He almost swore, but her eyes were still shut, and he didn't think she was awake. He eyed the IV. If she remembered this at all, she'd blame the drugs._

_“Go back to sleep. You need it.”_

_“Don't want to sleep. No one's holding me. He never holds me. Thought it was just a thing. Just him being... all big and manly in front of everyone... but he won't ever hold me.”_

_“His loss,” JD muttered, having loved the feel of her in his arms. He'd thought he could keep that forever. He was a fool, but he'd been so sure of a lot of things back then._

_“I miss how it was after that first time. I would have slept there under the stars.”_

_“There's plenty now. You just close your eyes and you'll see them.”_

_“I wanted to love you,” she whispered, and he grimaced. “I wanted to be like that night forever. And then people started dying and I had to stop you and... and I married the furthest thing from you. I thought I wanted safe. Safe won't even let me be on top.”_

_“Uh, Veronica...” JD began, knowing she'd hate it if she knew he'd actually told him any of this._

_“I kind of wish you weren't dead... and not just for the sex.. though that was good...”_

_“You flatter me, darling, but you don't really mean that.”_

_She lifted a hand like she was trying to reach for him, but he didn't let her catch him with it. “We had moments that weren't just about death. I miss those moments. I even wonder... what if we'd both used our genius for good? Like now... what if you were some kind of hero or cop... you might have been a good Batman all dark and scary...”_

_“Nope, definitely not a hero.”_

_“I thought you were. At first. Some dark knight come to sweep me off my feet and out of Westerburg on your bike.”_

_“You never needed a hero to do that for you. You just didn't see it that way, but you could do it all on your own. And you did.”_

_“I'm tired of being alone.”_

_So was he, but he wasn't going to say that. He'd been here too long already, even if her coworkers were off doing their jobs and her husband didn't seem to show his face much at all._

_“Just sleep. You'll wake up and be out of here in no time.”_

_“Stay with me?”_

_Oh, hell, no. He couldn't. Didn't dare._

_“You're a hell of a lot better off without me in your life,” JD told her. He gave into the stupidest of impulses and bent to kiss her forehead. Stepping back, he swallowed down his stupidity, shaking his head. “Do me a favor and sleep now, okay?”_

_“Okay,” she said, smiling contentedly, never once having opened her eyes._

* * *

“I told you Jay doesn't tell me these things,” Enid said. “And we need a plan. We can't just go walking up to either Heather and ask her if her children killed for her.”

“And here I thought you liked the direct approach,” Veronica muttered. “It's not like you pull many punches with me.”

“I don't have to, nor do I want to,” Enid said, “but I have also been a part of a successful con for a while now, and what I do know about that is that you have to pick your battles, plan your attack, and be ready for the curve balls that are going to come. Half the world thinks psychics don't exist, the other half do, and there's a few percent in there that could go either way with proof. So you need to talk to them just right and have what you need to nudge them over the edge toward belief.”

“Were you feeding him information the entire time?” Veronica asked. “That's why he wears the hood, isn't it? So you can tell him what to say to their questions and feed him hidden information you get from your hacks.”

“No, he wears the robe to hide his face and seem more mystic. I have never prompted him during one of his performances. I don't need to. He reads people well, and what I give him before he meets them is usually enough for him to improvise something. He can take the smallest thing and turn it into absolute proof for a believer. I still don't know what gave him the conviction Betsy Grant had done laundry that day. It wasn't in the file, but her mother said she must have because there were sheets in the dryer when she got back.”

“You do realize how that sounds, right?”

“I know how it would sound if I hadn't been up all night with him setting up some revenge gaslighting of our own for that girl's siblings,” Enid said. “It wasn't him. I know in your world, it would be simpler if it was. He'd go away for a long time, you would never have to see him again, and you'd be convinced for good and all he is nothing but a murderer. You'd think you could finally put him past you and move on without feeling guilty.”

“I have moved on.”

“Liar.”

Veronica glared at her. She wanted to say something that would rattle her, but she didn't have anything. “What do you think we're going to do about Heather?”

“I was thinking a very coincidental meeting. People see so much in them, like it must be fate to see you again. So we find her schedule or get a sense of her routine and boom, meet by accident. It's a very effective method.”

“I was wrong about the resemblance,” Veronica told her. “You're as scary as he is when he plans this kind of stuff.”

Enid smiled.

“What about the zoning commissioner?”

Enid choked. “Um... Do a quick search, but I'm pretty sure he's still in prison.”

“Bribes?”

“Try kiddie porn including what may or may not be a snuff film. They haven't been able to prove it one way or another.”

Veronica gagged. She should be better at controlling her reaction to this kind of thing as an agent, but that couldn't be right. “That's the guy Bud had arranged to send JD to if he died?”

Enid nodded. “I double and tripled checked that part of the will. He was definitely the guy. When Jay said he would have gone to someone just as bad, I think he was understating it rather than exaggerating, though I don't know how much of that freaky stuff he was into Jay actually knew about when that will was made.”

Enough to scare him out of killing his father outright despite what he'd claimed the bastard did to him and his mother, Veronica thought with a wince. She swallowed, trying to clear her throat. “All right, we're back to the Heathers. I still don't know that I see it in either of them. And I'm not sure that they would do this to get back at JD.”

“You're not necessarily a package deal for everyone,” Enid reminded her. “And most people still think he's dead. While it's an interesting theory to suspect he's not and use you to lure him into the open, it's also flawed.”

“We're overlooking something big no matter who we suspect,” Veronica said. “Why now? Why would anyone come after me or JD now? I know you said that they could have raised their child as a killer, and it's not impossible. It's just... they had years to go after one or both of us. Why wait this long? Why not... I don't know, destroy my happiness just before my wedding?”

“I suppose you could argue that if it was about drawing him out, someone thought you getting married would do it.”

“He wasn't there.”

“I'm sure he wasn't,” Enid said. “I really don't think he would have been willing to watch you do that. Until you showed up at our door, I had no idea you were anything to him. Well, I know what the article in the paper about his suicide said, but I'm pretty sure he keeps his distance from you—and not without reason. He kind of... imploded his life as soon as things tied back to you. You seem to bring out a very self-destructive streak in him, and again, I don't like you for it, but it is what it is.”

Veronica sighed. She didn't want to see JD destruct over her. If he'd really turned his life around, then... maybe he should have a chance to keep doing it.

“If he really has self-destructed, would you have seen it when you did the search?” Veronica asked. “Where'd you look? Would it have shown if someone... I don't know, did something to one or both of the Heathers?”

Enid gave her an annoyed look. “Seriously? I am a damned good hacker, and you think I just looked at the names and dates of those kids? I've got a lot more there. I just haven't had a chance to sort through it all yet. I mean, ideally I'd be working with my real set up and not a little thing like this, though it does work in a pinch.”

Veronica looked at her. “Maybe you should let me drive.”

Enid looked her over. “I don't think so.”

* * *

_Veronica stepped through the warehouse, careful of the puddles along the floor. She didn't want to tell them she was coming. She'd seen at least one of them run this way, and she knew that she was the only one who had. This was her responsibility. She would stop them, like she'd stopped JD._

_Damn it, this wasn't the same thing. Why did she always have to think about him? He was dead and gone, and she was looking for a suspect. She couldn't afford the distraction._

_She turned the corner, finding herself face to face with another gun. She stared at it, swallowing and feeling sick. “Drop the gun.”_

_“You first, bitch.” His whole body twitched, and she knew he was high. If she didn't do something quick, he would kill her._

_She had sworn she wouldn't do this. She had the training, but she'd said Kurt was the first and the last. Never again. She wasn't going to kill, not even for her own miserable life._

_Then she remembered why they were here, why they'd needed to take these bastards down in the first place, and she knew she didn't have a choice. It wasn't about her. It was about the other people he'd killed. If she let him go now, let him kill her, he'd go free to kill more._

_“Drop it,” she repeated, and when he just laughed at her, she pulled the trigger._

_And screamed._

* * *

“And you're back in the land of the living. Wakey, wakey, princess.”

Veronica grimaced, forcing herself up in the seat. She swallowed and looked around, trying not to panic. Enid didn't even look at her, busy scrolling through something on her tablet. She tapped the screen a few times with her stylus and seemed to be mumbling to herself without actual words.

“Enid?”

“I'm not even going to ask,” Enid told her. “I... I don't want to know. You, on the other hand, should know that we are just outside the local outlet mall. This is where Heather McNamara spends her mornings. She gets a coffee from that shop there and walks through the sculpture park unless she has shopping to do. Today she has a list, so she's likely to be shopping. I'd say we want to go there, but as she's shopping for a baby shower, I'd rather not. After all, neither of us is pregnant, and us looking for baby shower gifts at the same time as her is just a little awkward since we don't live here.”

“Too much coincidence?” Veronica asked, still trying to calm her own nerves.

“Exactly. On the other hand, everyone does coffee or tea every now and again, so we may as well go in for one on our way.”

“Our way to where?”

Enid set down the tablet. “We don't have long before she leaves the coffee shop. Take a minute and clean yourself up before meeting me inside.”

“Enid—”

“You wanted to prove it wasn't Heather McNamara. We're here to do that. And no, I haven't seen any trace of my brother online, so we still don't know where he is. He could be here. Pull yourself together and let's do this. God, this would be so much easier if you wore the robe,” Enid muttered, shoving her tablet in her bag before she left the car.

Veronica took a breath, knowing she needed a lot more after that dream. She took her brush out and ran it through her hair. She pulled on her shirt, knowing she looked like she'd been sleeping in the car not just today but for a whole week or more.

This was not the way she wanted to see Heather again, even if this Heather was not as bad about appearances as the other Heathers had been.

She shook her head, getting out of the car. She shut the door behind her and hurried up to the shop, knowing that if she didn't do this quickly, she wouldn't do it at all. She knew it wasn't Heather McNamara. She could get back in the car and leave.

Except she didn't have the keys. Enid was driving.

And, speak of the devil.

“Ronnie!” Enid called, waving her over to a table. Veronica swore she hadn't taken that long in the car. How had Enid gotten through the line already. “Over here, Veronica!”

Oh, that was completely unnecessary, but she supposed it did its work because Heather looked up from her drink and saw, not Enid making a fool of herself, but Veronica, standing there feeling like an idiot. Her eyes widened, and she rose from the table, coming around to face her.

“Veronica?”

“Heather?” Veronica thought she looked about the same. Older, as they all did, but still beautiful. She had what looked like a genuine smile on her face and one of those birthstone pendant necklaces around her neck.

The biggest change was that she was not wearing one bit of yellow.

“It is you,” Heather said, giving her a big hug. “Oh, wow, it has been ages. I'm so glad to see you. I didn't think—weren't you halfway across the country with the FBI and your new husband?”

“Um... the husband kind of didn't work out, so I transferred back closer to my parents,” Veronica said. Her father had passed three years ago, never knowing how horrible his daughter really was. “Still with the FBI, though.”

“Wow. That is just so... amazing. I never really thought you'd be an agent. I guess I never saw a lot of our futures coming,” Heather went on. “Me with my busload of kids and Heather with her fortune five hundred company... How are Betty and Martha? Are you still in touch with them? I'm afraid without you, they really didn't stick around me much. Senior year was a bit lonely that second semester.”

Veronica winced. “I know. A part of me regrets leaving early. It wasn't that big of a difference, but I was just so sure it would make all the difference. It didn't.”

“You're doing well, though, right? I mean, I'm sorry to hear about the divorce, but... everything else is okay, right?”

Veronica forced herself to nod. It wasn't okay, she was far from fine, but she wasn't about to admit that here. “Yeah, I'm good.”

“I am so amazed to see you,” Heather went on. “What are the odds? Here I am for my coffee like always, and in comes Veronica Sawyer. You know, I owe you so much... If you hadn't stopped me from doing something stupid that day, I wouldn't have had any of this. And my kids. They're great kids. I wish they were here so you could meet them.”

Heather hugged her again, and Veronica hated herself for lying about what she was here. “Oh, but I'm keeping you from your friend, aren't I? Oops.”

“It's fine. Enid will understand,” Veronica said, not sure if they should have given her a false name. Oh, hell, was Enid's name actually Enid? She didn't have any way of knowing. She'd taken that much at face value, though the fact that Heather had heard her meant she at least wasn't some delusion created by Veronica's mind.

Unless this all was.

Damn it.

“Your latte,” Enid said, holding the cup out to her. “Who's your friend?”

“Enid, this is Heather McNamara. We were friends in high school. Heather, this is Enid. She's... um... she's...”

“I'm her future sister-in-law,” Enid said with a too cheerful smile. “Veronica's engaged to my brother.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The visit to Heather McNamara continues awkwardly for Veronica.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this got a bit away from me, as Enid's joke tried to go too far, and then I decided that it was time to address a few other issues, but I'm not very sure about that, either.

* * *

JD's dad will not be speaking at our wedding.

_Veronica set down her pen and sighed. She did not like or trust Big Bud. She'd gotten the creep vibe from him the moment he walked in, and the strange way JD talked to him, calling him “Son” just made it all worse._

_And what was with that bit at the end?_

_She looked up as something scraped outside her window, and she set aside her diary as a familiar head poked itself inside._

_“Don't bother with etiquette this time. Come in,” she told him, and he gave her a bit of a smile as he climbed the rest of the way up and in. “I guess I should have invited you over here for dinner. Spaghetti has to be better than a turbo dog, right?”_

_JD shrugged, and she frowned. “Are you okay?”_

_“Fine,” he said, and the way he said it made her think he was anything but fine. She sighed, going over to him. She wrapped her arms around him, and he tensed in her hold._

_“I'm glad you're here. I keep thinking about Heather. I think I'm going crazy,” Veronica admitted. “It was an accident, but the way everyone keeps going on and on about how tragic it was, how misunderstood she must have been... I don't know what to think half the time. I feel like I'm only clear when I'm with you.”_

_He shifted, wrapping his arms around her. “Same here. You give me a clarity I haven't had in years.”_

_“Mom was asking me about prom at dinner, and it just felt so weird to talk about something like that,” Veronica said, pulling away from him. She took his hand instead and led him over to her bed. “And then I caught myself thinking about... other stuff, and I just don't see how I could do that, how I can deserve it.”_

_“Deserve what?” JD asked, combing back her hair. “I think you deserve everything.”_

_“And see, that's the kind of talk that makes me think of stupid girly things like proms and weddings and things killers don't get.”_

_“You'll have all that someday,” he said. “I bet you'd be a beautiful bride.”_

_“And you'd make a handsome groom.”_

_He laughed. “Is that a proposal?”_

_It was insane, but she wanted to say yes. She wanted to say they should run off and elope and become adults, do that growing up and dying bit she'd talked about before. She knew without him, she'd be going completely insane after what happened to Heather. She needed him._

_“No, it's not,” she said. “Though if you wanted to pretend it was a wedding night...”_

* * *

“What?”

Veronica hadn't managed to get a word out, staring in shock at Enid. What the hell would she say that for? Even if JD was innocent of these crimes and he didn't end up doing something stupid and getting himself killed while he was wherever he was now, he couldn't afford to have anyone know he was alive. Most people didn't know he had anything to do with the deaths at Westerburg, but if he suddenly came back from the dead, everyone would. The FBI would eventually look into all of his background and find that he was living under alias after alias, and he could still go down for fraud if not murder.

“You're getting married again?” Heather asked, reaching for her hand and frowning.

“Oh, that would be my brother's doing. See, as much as I told him he needed to make sure that he got the size right, he thought he knew better than me, and he picked wrong, so the ring's being sized,” Enid said, carrying on like she wasn't evil incarnate. “He's an idiot, but he's head over heels for her, so I guess some allowances must be made.”

Heather nodded. “That is so exciting. I am so happy for you, Veronica. I know it might not seem like it, since I said that before, and I kind of feel terrible about this, but I really didn't think that guy was the one for you, but what do I know? We're not really the friends we once were.”

Veronica tried to force a smile. She felt sick, and she was going to kill Enid. “It has been so good to see you, Heather.”

“Oh, I am such an idiot,” Heather said. “You're here to shop at that bridal outlet, aren't you? I've heard they have the most beautiful dresses, better than a lot of big name designers. It's all the rage now, famous across the country. My daughter swears she's getting a dress from there when she gets engaged. I'm still hoping that's years from now. I'm not ready to be a grandma.”

“I bet you'll enjoy spoiling them when you are,” Veronica said, not sure how that came out when all she wanted to do was puke.

“You ever think about having kids, Veronica?” Heather asked. She got a bit red. “Sorry. I shouldn't ask that.”

“I fear for anyone sharing my brother's genes,” Enid said. “The world is probably better off if that never happens, though... there's always adoption.”

Veronica looked at her. “Exactly what do you think you're doing, Enid?”

“Nothing,” she answered with a bright smile. “I think I need a refill. It'll give me an excuse to talk to that cutie waiting in line.”

Veronica watched her go, trying to find some way of salvaging this conversation with Heather. “I'm sorry. She and I... we don't exactly get along. She's a little... overprotective of her brother, for all the insults and snark they share.”

“Oh, tell me about it,” Heather said. “My sister-in-law and I can't stand each other. She was the only girl in a family of boys, and she was spoiled rotten. Then her brother got married, and she wasn't alone... her parents gained daughters, and she felt like she'd lost something. She blames me because I was only the first of the wives, not the last.”

“Sounds rough.”

Heather shook her head. “Not after Heather Chandler and Heather Duke. Every time she throws one of her fits, I just find myself thinking she wouldn't have lasted a day in their world.”

“Do you talk to Heather Duke much?”

“Not really. She's so busy with her company, and she's got her own family when she's not ruling the business world. I'm not sure she has time for anything else.”

“Do you know her kids?”

Heather nodded. “Yeah, we sent ours to private school—I wasn't sure I liked the idea, but my husband did, and the kids do okay there, seem happy enough—but it's the same one Heather sent her kids to. Best in the state.”

Veronica tried to find a subtle way of asking if any of them was a homicidal maniac and came up empty. She wished Enid hadn't ditched her like that. Was she really serious about picking someone up while they were working, or was she just trying to piss Veronica off?

“Ugh, Ronnie, remind me never to show my geek colors again,” Enid muttered as she returned to them. “I swear, one mention of anime and the guys go running. What is up with that?”

“Anime?” Heather asked, frowning.

“Japanese animation?” Enid supplied. “Cartoons? None of that rings any bells?”

Heather shook her head. “No, I guess my kids never got into it, and I've never heard of it. I should have, as a mom, I guess, but it's not really something I've done much with. I'm sorry he wasn't interested in it.”

Enid shrugged. “Eh, my Mamoru is out there somewhere.”

Heather gave Veronica a look, but all Veronica could do was shrug. She didn't get the reference, either. It must be something anime, but Veronica had no idea what.

“Well, we shouldn't keep you,” Veronica began, though she didn't know that she actually was interrupting anything. If it wasn't for JD being MIA and those girls dying, she'd have liked to stay and catch up more, maybe even meet Heather's kids.

“We were hoping to find the dress today,” Enid added. “With these two, if the planning goes on much longer, they'll elope, and that would just crush my mother.”

Veronica didn't bother pointing out that Enid's mother was not JD's mother and that she'd never met the woman. She doubted that she'd care who JD married, since Enid probably never told her she had a brother, and if the one part was true, it was hard to believe she'd want anything to do with anyone connected to Big Bud.

“Oh, I—would you think it horrible of me if I tagged along for a bit? All I've got to do today is shop for a baby shower, but there's time for that yet.”

Veronica forced another smile. “Um, well—”

“Not a problem at all. I have zero fashion sense, and Veronica could really use some help in that department, don't you think?”

“Enid, don't make me kill you.”

The other woman just smiled back.

* * *

“Oh, this one,” Veronica said, grabbing the first dress she saw and pulling it off the rack. “Come on, Enid. I'll need your help getting it on.”

“Um, Veronica, not only do I not think that's your size, but if I'm along for fashion sense, it's not a look that's going to flatter you. At all,” Heather said, wincing as she studied the other bits of poof hanging on the rack.

“It's fine. She'll see that as soon as it's on,” Enid said, following Veronica back into the dressing room. “I hope.”

Veronica shut the door behind them, hissing out the question she'd wanted to ask since they left the coffee shop. “Exactly what is your plan here? How are we supposed to find out if Heather Duke was involved if we're shopping with Heather McNamara all day? And why in the name of all that is holy did you tell her I was marrying your brother?”

Enid rolled her eyes. “Seriously, if you need an answer for that last one, there's no hope for you. As to the rest, the idea of this bridal shop was the cover as soon as I knew we were coming near this place. It's a perfectly logical excuse for someone to be here if they're not local. And no, it wouldn't have worked if I was the one getting married because we're not related, I look too young to be your friend or an agent but too old to be your daughter—not that they're not all well aware you didn't have kids—and you coming along for my wedding wouldn't have fooled anyone for long because we can't stand each other half the time. You marrying my brother is a stretch of the truth, but they do always say that the best lies start with a bit of truth, and you _did_ date him.”

“This is a mess. JD is supposed to be dead, and we're going to be shopping for hours thanks to you. How is that part of your plan smart?”

Enid snorted. “You want to take her word because she was all hearts and flowers when she saw you? Are you insane? If someone went to this kind of length to torment you—killing five innocent girls to get to you and likely corrupting their own child into doing it—do you honestly think that they couldn't fake being pleased to see you? And her not knowing what anime is? I don't buy it. She's got four kids. She's heard the term at least once. You have.”

“That's not a reason to suspect her.”

“I work with a fraud for a living. I suspect everyone,” Enid countered. “Now go back out there and find a real dress, get Heather to help you this time, and I'm going to borrow her phone for a bit.”

“You're evil.”

“Apparently, it's genetic,” Enid said with a smirk before leaving the dressing room.

Veronica shook her head. She didn't know how she was going to get through this day without killing someone. She swore she'd end up choking the life out of Enid. If they hadn't taken her service weapon from her when she'd been put on leave, she might already have shot the other woman.

Oh, God. What kind of a plan would Enid have when it came to Heather Duke?

* * *

“So, are you just a stalker who thinks he's in love with Veronica, or are you actually a killer?”

Richards almost jumped out of his chair at the sound of his voice, and he wanted to laugh. That was rather comical. The big bad FBI agent startled by a shadow. He didn't seem at all calm now, and weren't they supposed to have cool heads in a crisis?

“Who are you? What the hell do you think you're doing in my house?”

“I asked the question first,” he said, leaning against the wall and trying not to give into the frustration crawling through his skin. This was a dangerous situation, and he knew it. He was right on the edge, and it would be too easy to slip. If he fell, it would be bloody. “And you have a very limited window in which to answer me, because if you don't, we're going to have a real problem. If I have to force the answer out of you, it won't be pretty.”

“You're trespassing in my home. I can shoot you.”

“Hence why I waited until you had finished unloading your gun and locking it in your safe before announcing my presence,” he said, smiling as he did. “You can take your chances with trying to get that open again, or you can answer my question.”

“You know that even if I do, you won't get away with this,” Richards said, recovering some bravado. “I may not be able to see you, but I recognize that voice. You're trespassing and threatening a federal agent. I will get you for fraud and so much more than that.”

“Rosebud.”

“That won't stop me,” Richards said. “I will arrest you if I don't shoot you first.”

That made him laugh. “Oh, you'd like to, but your notions of gun safety have kind of made that a non-issue for the moment, and don't bother bluffing about having another that's not locked up. I know you do—it's in the trunk of your car and also locked up, though your combination is disturbingly easy to predict. I'm almost guaranteed you won't shoot me. You don't have that guarantee.”

“I still know who you are.”

“No, you don't,” he said, since he was still certain the agent hadn't connected him back to Jason Dean, not yet. “What I want to know is why you hid that gun in the warehouse?”

Richards swallowed. “How the hell do you know about that?”

“How do you think?”

“You're not a real psychic.”

“And yet you sound a bit panicked over there. You're still trying to figure out how I know these things. I'm still trying to decide how patient I am, because you're taking too long to answer me.” He made a point of thumbing off the safety, wanting Richards to understand that he wasn't just bluffing. “You were in love with her before she married Hanson, weren't you? I get why you didn't say anything then. You were married at the time yourself. That fell apart, though, and so did her thing with Hanson, but instead of making a move, you just kept on playing bossman. Why is that?”

“Don't the spirits tell you that, too?”

“They're assholes, remember?” He laughed. “So, no. I can make a few guesses, and none of them are at all flattering towards you. You seem to like having Veronica on edge, doubting her sanity, and desperate for your support. Nice power fantasy you've got there. I suppose your need to subjugate strong women was the reason your wife left you.”

“You don't know anything about me.”

“Rosebud,” he repeated, and the other man swore. “Yeah, I know a lot more than you think. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with all of it. That depends on you.”

“If you know so much, why don't you know that I didn't kill those girls?” Richards scoffed. “See? You have nothing. I have an alibi for each of those killings, and it's given to me by the federal government.”

“Except that only works if you don't know that someone a lot younger was the one seducing and killing those girls, which I do. This isn't a single person operation, and your obsessive gun safety comes from the fact that you raised a child in this house. So I suppose the question is... did you use your son to kill those girls?”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica and Enid deal with the Heathers, while JD continues his own confrontation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... I finally added the one flashback. And I'm sorry.
> 
> Um... and yeah, that's all I can think to say right now. I'm a bit fried and brain dead from work.

* * *

“Oh, Veronica,” Heather said, clapping her hands together with a grin. “That is it. That has to be the dress. It's so... very. And you, definitely you, but I haven't used very in so long and I wanted to, but that is a dress you have to have.”

“I agree,” Enid said, “much better than that thing you had on earlier or your first wedding dress.”

Veronica had to bite back asking Enid how she knew about that. The woman had hacked into her life as soon as she'd met up with JD again, or close to it. She would have seen the wedding photos. Those were online thanks to her mother, who'd taken to Facebook far more than she should have.

She was, incidentally, the only one who lamented that lawyer Hanson was long gone.

“I don't know. It doesn't seem... formal enough.”

Enid snorted. “You strike me as the type that would wear a little black dress to your wedding. And that would actually have been better than that thing you did wear. Was that really your idea? Because, seriously, the shoulder pads would have been a better look, and even I know those those things are totally eighties.”

Heather looked like she was trying not to laugh, and Veronica just wanted to die here and now. Someone should kill her and put her out of her misery.

“It was not that bad.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Heather began, “it was awful, but only Heather Chandler would have told you that. You were so happy about it, and none of us were willing to burst your bubble.”

“Maybe I should have invited Heather Duke,” Veronica grumbled. She gave the dress another glance in the mirror. She'd never been all that fond of white. It liked to wash her out, and she really did like black, though she'd never admit that to Enid.

“Oh, are you working with Ms. Duke?” the salesperson asked, and Veronica looked over with a frown. “Hold on. I think she just came in. I'll let her know you're here.”

“Wait, what?”

“Did you forget Heather Duke's fortune five hundred company does wedding planning?” Enid whispered in her ear, and Veronica almost smacked her. That was a detail she could have shared a long time ago. Of course, Veronica could have kept more in touch, and she should have known about both Heathers' kids without the other woman telling her. She felt like she was coming apart at the seams, and she needed some way of getting control again. She hadn't had it even before JD reentered her life, but since then, either he or Enid seemed to be directing her steps, and it was past time she changed that.

“I know I didn't double book myself,” Heather Duke said as she walked up to them, looking just as she had when they were teens. Veronica would bet that was due to plastic surgery, and Enid could probably find out. “Well, now, this is a surprise.”

“The salesperson misunderstood, and we didn't have a chance to correct her,” Veronica said. “We were talking about my last wedding, and your name came up, so she assumed we were clients, not former friends.”

“You should have come to me for your last wedding,” Heather said, shaking her head. “Heather Chandler would have rolled over in her grave at the sight of that dress. And she never would have let you marry that man. Looks like she was even right about that.”

Veronica shrugged. “It happens. He seemed like the right choice at the time.”

Heather seemed amused by that, giving them a bit of a smile. Then she spotted Enid. “I don't think we've met. Heather Duke, of Duchess Weddings and Destinations.”

“I've heard of you,” Enid told her. “I'm Enid Carver. My brother's the lucky groom this time around.”

“Nice to meet you,” Heather said, almost sounding genuine.

“This is such a strange day,” Heather McNamara said, shaking her head. “First we run into each other at the coffee shop, and then we meet Heather Duke here. What are the odds of that?”

“Somewhere in the millions to one, right, Enid?” Veronica asked, aware of the pointed edge to her words. Enid had arranged the whole damned thing. She probably even booked Heather a client that would be a no-show.

“Hey, just because I'm a geek and my mom dealt blackjack does not mean I'm an expert on odds,” Enid said. “And I so want to give into the geek thing and do the quote. 'Never tell me the odds.' God, that's it. I need a slushie.”

Both of the Heathers exchanged a look, and Enid left them all behind. Veronica knew it was on purpose. Enid might have been a geek, but she seemed comfortable with it, using it more than once to investigate this case. She'd left so they could talk about old times again.

“Enid is... a bit weird.”

“I'd be worried about the family you're marrying into,” Heather Duke said. “Might have a few questionable genes in the pool.”

“Don't say that,” McNamara told her. “Enid's sweet, even if she and Veronica don't always get along. I know I don't know much of anything about her brother, but I think she's just fine.”

“I'm sure.”

“She's just bitter over not having her own Mamoru.”

“Anime, huh? I did a Sailor Moon theme wedding a few years ago. Drove me crazy because half the time the girl used the Japanese names for them, the other half the Americanized ones. It was a nightmare. I never knew what she was talking about. My daughter made me flashcards as a joke.”

“Oh, that's sweet.”

“Your daughter knows anime?”

Heather shrugged. “I think she preferred the manga, but I always get those mixed up. And I really should get back to my client. It was nice seeing both of you. That dress is a good choice. Much better than the last one.”

“Thanks,” Veronica said, shaking her head as Heather walked away.

“I think she may actually have mellowed a bit,” McNamara said, and Veronica couldn't help it. She laughed.

* * *

_JD filled up the dog's bowl and frowned. As hard as it was moving around like this, and as bad as things had been since his mother died, he still had his only friend to keep him company. The bullies at school could kick him and hit him and say mean things about his mom—they weren't half as bad as his father on a good day—but he knew when he got home, that mutt would be waiting for him with his tongue hanging out and his tail wagging._

_Except today._

_JD supposed maybe he was still outside. Sometimes the neighbors passing by the back fence were more interesting than he was, and he couldn't blame the dog for wanting to watch them when the last few places they'd been had no open fences. His father had liked that, since it let him do stuff to JD outside without the neighbors seeing._

_“Old Dan?” he called, grimacing as he did and wishing his mother had managed to talk him out of that one when he was younger. Nowadays he just felt stupid for using it, but he'd thought the dog in that book was worth naming his own after even if he didn't have a coonhound. He'd read it with his mom, and that made the book special, since he'd never do anything with her again. “Dan?”_

_“Were you calling for me, son?”_

_He jumped back, looking up at his father and swallowing. “Uh... no. I was trying to find the dog.”_

_“The dog. Not a word of hello to dear old dad, but you want to play with your dog, do you?”_

_JD hit the wall and swallowed, trying to tell himself that he was wrong about this. He had to be. His father wouldn't do that. He was mean, but not to the dog. He ignored it. JD took care of him, took him out for walks and cleaned up after him. He fed him and watered him. He slept on JD's bed._

_He was a good dog. No trouble._

_“Where's my dog?”_

_“People tell me dogs are supposed to be trainable,” Big Bud said. “Just like kids are supposed to be trainable. You should be. You should be so easy to train, but you still do the wrong thing, over and over again.”_

_“Dan was house trained. He hasn't gone inside since he was a puppy. We made sure of that. And if he did, he must be sick. Please, let me take him to the vet. I'll make up the money somehow. I can get a paper route or something.”_

_His father took hold of him, and JD tried to pull free as he was dragged down the hallway toward his bedroom. “We don't need complications. Distractions. It's just you and me. That's how it should be, Jason.”_

_“No,” JD said. “Mom should be here.”_

_His father hit him, and he fell into his room. He forced himself up, and when he was on his feet, he could see it. Dan, lying there in the middle of his bed. Dead._

_“Did he get out and get hit by a car?”_

_“Don't be stupid,” his father said. “The dog was a problem. That problem is gone now.”_

_“No. No, you didn't. Please. Please tell me you didn't,” JD begged, even if he knew he shouldn't. He didn't understand. He hadn't done anything wrong. Dan hadn't done anything wrong. He was a good dog. And if he was a problem... what did that say about JD's mother?_

_“You know what I did,” Bud said. “Now the question is whether you're going to do what you're supposed to do, Jason.”_

_JD forced himself to nod. What choice did he have?_

* * *

“I can't believe you made me buy it.”

Enid shrugged. “You wanted to keep the cover intact, so you did. I may have prompted you to do it, but I couldn't force your hand and make you sign that credit card slip. You did that all on your own.”

Veronica shook her head. She hadn't had much of a choice. Heather McNamara was wholly convinced that Veronica was getting married again and had found the best dress ever, and how was she supposed to say no? She couldn't say it was something to discuss with her fiancé because he didn't exist and because wedding dresses were something the guy had next to no influence in when the wedding was real.

The guy was expected to do cakes, seating arrangements, guest lists, gift registries, that sort of thing, but not the dress. He usually didn't get to see it until the day of, and Hanson's feelings on her dress had been validating, she'd thought, but if he liked it, it should have been a red flag.

“I have a wedding dress I'm never going to wear,” Veronica said, “And it cost me my entire last paycheck to buy it.”

Enid grinned, going over to hold the door open for Veronica. “Well, you could always dye it black.”

“Not helping,” Veronica muttered as Enid laughed. “I hate you.”

Enid smirked, letting the door shut behind them. “You still have to admit that I am impressive. I got both our suspects in the same place at the same time. Now how is that for ingenuity? I am a genius. It saved us time, and all it cost was a wedding dress. They'll never have to know you suspected them and their children of murder.”

“No, I just get the humiliation of being left at the alter or something like that,” Veronica said, putting a hand to her head. It was starting to throb. She needed a drink, and she'd really like to hurt Enid after all of this. “Thanks for that.”

“I live to serve,” Enid said. “Though really, and this is not just my suspicious nature, we got nothing from them. One denied knowing anime, the other admitted it but claimed it confused her. She also said her daughter knew enough to make flashcards, so that could be it. Jay thought the lover was male, but we didn't have any proof one way or another.”

“Richards should have it by now. He told the IT department to look into the reddit accounts.”

Enid shrugged. “I don't have to wait for him to do that. I can do it myself. I just gave you people that so that Jay couldn't back out of the case like he was going to.”

“You forced him to stay.”

“Yup. He couldn't back out without causing himself more problems than the one he was trying to avoid—you—after I told the FBI what we knew and said it came from him and his 'spirits.'”

“Only it came from you and your hacking.”

Enid shrugged. “So? It's not like I can email in a tip I hacked. His spirits are a better answer than that, and it's not like I was wrong. Sometimes bending the rules is better than sticking to the letter of the law and doing nothing. Really, you'd have an almost perfect working relationship there. He can get you the information you need even if the source is best left at 'spirits' and you can find arrest the bastards that thought they were untouchable.”

Veronica shook her head. While in theory that seemed tempting, it was not a good idea. She was supposed to uphold the law, not bend it, and having JD in her life at all seemed like too big a risk for both of them. People would look into his past, and when they couldn't find one, they'd make him a suspect. If they uncovered the truth, it would end things for everyone. And even if it didn't, people would want to know too much. He was considered semi-legitimate now, but if he showed himself to be more accomplished than that, everyone would want him and want him to prove he was genuine. They'd want to make a hero out of him when he was a killer, and he couldn't afford the attention. Neither of them could.

“Let's stick with this case. We don't have much to go on here. It's hard to picture either Heather having trained up a child as a killer. Heather's so warm and happy. And the other Heather... well, I think she did mellow some, even if her daughter did know about the anime.”

“If they were the kinds of people who manipulated their kids to murder, I'm not so sure we'd see it in a casual conversation. They'd have to be calculating, to have every moment planned, every word chosen with care... Neither of them did that, it's true, but it's not like people saw all the damage Bud did to Jay at first glance.”

“He was still creepy at first glance.”

“Yeah, but you wouldn't have thought he'd done anything to Jay because he helped you kill Heather instead of going after his own monster. Monsters.”

Veronica gagged, almost getting sick all over her overpriced wedding gown. The double suicide he'd planned for Kurt and Ram, was that what he'd meant to do to his father and that zoning planner? It had to be, didn't it? And yet he'd used it against Kurt and Ram instead, because they'd spread that rumor about her.

“You okay over there? You look a bit... turquoise.”

Veronica managed to stare at her, stomach still tilting uneasily. “Most people just say green.”

“You have a tinge of blue as well as the green,” Enid told her. “What's wrong?”

“How much do you actually know about your brother?”

Enid shook her head. “Again, really? We had this conversation already. I know you don't want to face the idea that one of those women or someone else you know is behind all this, but that doesn't make it about Jay. As much as you would be the most likely bait for him, there'd be no way of knowing that he would ever come for you, since it's not like you have proof he did before.”

“There was at least once I was sure he'd been there,” Veronica said. She grimaced. “More than one. Some of them I dismissed as dreams, others as simply impossible, but he could have been there.”

“Again, no proof,” Enid said. “You're not sure. As much as you'd like to be, just having him be alive does not mean that moment was what you thought it was. And no one else knows about them, do they?”

Veronica grimaced. “I may have mentioned a few of them to my shrink. And... I told Richards about JD showing up to claim he was innocent. I was trying to stop the press conference and ended up back in therapy.”

“Did you also tell those people you killed Heather Chandler? Or that he did?”

“No. Not exactly. I kind of said it was him with Richards, but that wasn't the same.”

“Again, I don't think this is about Jay,” Enid said. “I am almost certain that whoever this killer is, they had no idea he was still alive. And that's going to come back to bite them in the ass.”

Veronica hoped so. She didn't want to believe it was either of the Heathers or their children, and she knew if it wasn't them, Enid would probably want to look at Betty or Martha, even though they were even less likely to be a part of it than either Heather.

“You said you can get into that reddit account,” Veronica said. “Do it. Now.”

* * *

“You're a bigger fool than I thought you were,” Richards said. “My son isn't any part of this. You're so far off base it's laughable, but then what should I expect from a fake psychic? I don't know what you thought you could do, prey on Hanson because she's vulnerable, but I'm not the same level of stupid. I won't fall for your crap.”

“Technically, you already did.” He could add that word a third time, but it was getting ridiculous. He would rather not think about that again. Enid had barely been able to tell him what she'd found when she uncovered that bit, and he still didn't like the look on her face when she had. “I admit, I did expect you to deny your son's involvement, but what interests me is how convinced of it you sound. Like the idea never crossed your mind.”

“Because it didn't,” Richards snapped. “It's ridiculous. I didn't kill anyone, and I wouldn't have my son do it for me.”

“Incorrect, again. You have also killed in the line of duty,” he said, watching the other man grimace. He knew he was being irritating, but he didn't care. Richards was lying. He was obsessed with Veronica, and that could have led to any number of dangerous things.

“That's different.”

“Not as much as you think,” he disagreed. “Though that's where it all ties in, isn't it? That warehouse. Veronica had to shoot someone, had to kill someone, and while she was also injured in the process, I'm betting her reaction to that was something bordering hysteria.”

Richards tensed, and he knew he'd struck another nerve. It wasn't hard to figure, not when JD knew that the last person Veronica had killed had been Kurt Kelly and just how much she blamed herself for that and hated him because of it. “You're fishing.”

“Am I?” That made him want to smile. “Let me guess. She started screaming. She told Kurt she was sorry. She said the same to Ram, though she didn't shoot him. She only shot Kurt, but she'd thought the bullets weren't real. She was sorry. She was so sorry. And she was sorry for Heather, too.”

Richards seemed to be breathing hard now, and JD knew that every word had hit its mark. He wasn't surprised. He could have predicted Veronica's reaction to shooting someone else. She might have been almost calm when she'd shot him, but he realized later that she hadn't figured on living past that confrontation. It was easy to pull the trigger when you didn't expect to live, and she'd also been fighting for everything that was right, but that kid in the warehouse would have been a lot more like killing Kurt Kelly for her, and it would have brought it all back in the shock and horror of the moment.

Especially if Richards was already abusing Veronica's delicate emotional state. She was strong enough to stop JD, to change things at Westerburg and move on, but she still carried that guilt with her, the remorse he was free from, and she would always have that weakness, that wound easily poked at and exploited.

“You've known for years,” JD went on. “You knew what she did, but instead of turning her in or making her resign, you kept silent, using those things against her in small, subtle ways, ones she didn't even see... until you decided to take the final steps and drive her completely over the edge.”

“No. I would never hurt Veronica like that. I knew I should turn her in, but I couldn't. I loved her.”

JD paused to consider that. If Richards was convinced that he loved her and that what he'd done wasn't damaging, then he might not have been seeking her destruction with the murders. He wasn't hoping to break her down and make her his.

And yet... Richards had moved that gun.

“You're lying. If you didn't want to hurt her, why'd you hide the gun? Why make everyone doubt her? You had to know what they'd think of her—what she'd think of herself.”

“I thought... I thought it would be kinder if she was let go over the shooting than exposing her past. She was just a teenager then, and I know now it was because of that boy she was dating at the time. She told me he was the one who would have copied those deaths. He was to blame.”

“So you would have let a killer go.”

“Veronica's not a killer. She's... she's... she's special.”

“Special enough to make you throw your marriage and career away,” JD said. “Here's a thought—what did your son think of that?”

“What?”

“You think he was happy about your marriage coming apart? Do you think he would have approved of your interest in your subordinate who was also married? What if he knew about those games you were playing with her head? If he knew about her part in Heather Chandler's death or any of the others?”

“He couldn't,” Richards whispered, but his words lacked conviction this time.

“Your son's a hacker, isn't he?”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enid does some hacking, and JD continues his confrontation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of these days, I will probably write a side story where JD does his whole fake psychic routine. I like the idea of it, and seeing him work a case that's full of strangers would be interesting, seeing how he might gather other information besides Enid's hacking and put it together.
> 
> I am hoping to get the two plots back on the same course, but that last line was one of those... "Oh, I shouldn't but that seems to work so well" moments which are very dangerous.

* * *

_“Here,” Enid said, handing him a pile of papers and a slushie. “This should be everything you need, maybe a bit more.”_

_He frowned, reaching for the slushie first. There were few times when that was the wrong option, and he could use the time to think. He was still trying to figure out this new assistant of his. The last few hadn't lasted long, but not only did Enid seem to be good at what she did, she seemed determined not to be put off by him._

_“I am capable of making my own schedule,” he told her. “There are apps for that.”_

_“And you don't use a phone,” she said, shaking her head as though she still found that very hard to believe. He didn't bother to correct her. Since even the cheap burner phones tended to have GPS these days, he wasn't going to bother. He didn't want to be tracked. Ever._

_He'd spent too long trying to overcome what he'd been to be found now. He wasn't that damaged, messed up bitter kid who'd tried to blow up his school anymore. He'd accepted that for what it was, and he wasn't going back to it. He didn't kill these days. He might hurt people, but only because they'd hurt others. He wasn't good, but he'd found a way to use how bad he was to almost good ends._

_“Read it. It's all you need to know about your new mark.”_

_“I don't have marks.”_

_She snorted. “You're a psychic. In a crappy office, with a bad movie cliché robe as your only claim to legitimacy. You're a con artist.”_

_He shook his head. He didn't expect her to understand. Sometimes he didn't understand it himself. He had come a long way since he'd survived that bomb and barely escaped his father with his life, and he'd floundered for a bit before realizing that his warped brain was good for more than just demented fantasies of death. He'd tried other ways of “helping” before, but none of them were half as effective as this was, even if he couldn't keep an assistant to save his life._

_“This isn't about getting all of their money. If that's what you think it is, the door's over there, and please let it hit you on the ass as you go.”_

_She shook her head. “I'm not leaving, and that stuff could help you. There's credit records and stuff there, things that would give you an idea where he might have gone or if he was spending money on another woman... almost anything that might tell you why he died. If he died, because maybe he's just missing and not... you know, dead.”_

_He eyed her with suspicion. “Where did you get all of this?”_

_“I put on my application that I'm good with computers.”_

_“I didn't read your application.”_

_“Seriously?”_

_He shrugged. “You were the only one who applied. I had a client. I needed an assistant. You were there. It was convenient.”_

_“That took me hours to fill out.”_

_“What are you expecting, an apology?” He almost laughed. “Let's get this out of the way here and now, little Niddie. I don't apologize. Not for one damned thing. Again, door's over there.”_

_“I want to know where this guy is,” Enid insisted. “You found that other one. Can you do that again? I don't even know what made you think his body was where it was, but it was there, and she was heartbroken, but she kept telling you it was better to know.”_

_He didn't know about that, but then he'd never had anyone disappear on him like that. His mother was dead, and Veronica was out of his life, but she wasn't dead. He could go see her again if he wanted, but he wouldn't._

_“I'm good with computers,” she repeated to end the awkward silence they were in. “Very, very good. Probably one of the best, even if I'm saying so myself.”_

_“So you're a geek.”_

_“I'm a hacker. There is a difference.”_

_“Not to the rest of the world,” he said, reaching over to pat her on the head. “You're all still losers.”_

_She glared at him, but held up a hand before he could say it. “Yes, I know where the door is. And screw you, I'm not using it.”_

_“If you insist. After all, I do have a job worthy of your computer skills.”_

_“Oh?”_

_He pointed to the boxes stacked on the other side of the room. “That's all stuff that needs to be entered into the computer. Have fun with that.”_

_She looked like she either wanted to cry or hit him. He didn't give her a chance to do either, picking up his jacket and heading for the door himself._

_“Wait, where are you going?”_

_He wouldn't be surprised if she wasn't there when he got back. “Out.”_

* * *

“Heather just texted me to say that if I was still in town we should do dinner before I leave,” Veronica said, setting down her phone with a sigh. She looked over at Enid, who was frowning and deep into whatever it was she was doing on her tablet. This time she had a keyboard out and was typing frantically as she went along.

“If that's a hint to make me go faster, I have only one response to that,” Enid said, giving Veronica the finger, much to the annoyance of a mother across the cafe, who made a distressed noise and tried to keep her son from seeing it. “Movies make this seem like something you can do in an instant and that you can preprogram everything to do a quick hack and give you everything you think you want. It's not that simple, and while sometimes I like talking about making trojans, that's mostly because the only thing I can think about when I hear the word trojan—”

“Greek gods or beautiful but miscast movie stars?”

“Condoms,” Enid said with relish, enjoying Veronica's reaction. “What can I say? I have a dirty mind.”

“And JD thought you were so innocent.”

“Compared to him, I'm a saint. I don't have any blood on my hands,” Enid said. “Well, none that wasn't pixelated and a part of over the top unrealistic gameplay.”

“How much longer?” Veronica asked as her phone got another text. “Oh, great. Heather Duke wants to know if I'm interested in having her do any of my wedding—at a discounted rate for an old friend. Unbelievable.”

“You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.”

“You did not just quote the Princess Bride to me.”

“Ah ha,” Enid cried, ignoring Veronica, as usual. “I did it. We have access. That only took forever and a day. Okay, now. We've got several followed threads, and who the hell thinks that's a good way to read reddit posts? Ugh. That's sickening. Here we go... anime. Damn, girl, did you just tag every post that had anything to do with anime? What is wrong with you?”

“Uh, Enid—”

“I'm working. Go get me a coffee slushie.”

“I think you mean a frappucino—”

“Coffee slushie,” Enid repeated. “I can't speed read these while you're talking, so go get me a drink and I'll see if I can make this go a bit faster.”

Veronica shook her head, but she rose. Soon as they had something from the reddit account, she was taking charge of this investigation again, she swore it. She was not going to be ordered around by JD or his sister again.

She paid for the drink and waited at the counter for it, giving Enid space and trying to figure out what she'd missed. JD hadn't left because he was disappearing again, she was almost certain of that. He had someone in mind in this case, but she couldn't figure out who that could be. Her mind kept telling her Heather Duke was the most likely suspect, and she still didn't believe that was true. She'd met her again, and she while she wouldn't say they were friends, she didn't get the sense that Heather wanted her to lose her mind or die.

She grabbed the drink when it was ready and carried it back to Enid, who sipped from it and gave a low, contented sigh. “Perfect.”

“Did you find anything?”

“Yes. I checked her inbox and found the private messages that suggested taking their conversation elsewhere. Our mystery guy—or girl—gave her an email address to use.”

“So it's a dead end because the emails were clean.”

“He was able to access her email and delete all of his messages, but he didn't think anyone would trace back the reddit to him. Maybe he was so cocky he thought no one would look there, but I did, and I found him. I found this email, and I just need a bit of time to get into it.”

“I'll call Richards. If the IT department did what you did, they may have already tracked down the email and know who created the account.”

“If he knows, he's not going to tell you. You're on leave. The most he'll do is tell you to come back and accept protective custody in a padded room, so why would you do that to yourself?” Enid asked. “Look, it's going to take me a bit, but I can get into this email, and we will know who sent those messages to Abby Marten. When we do, we can use that. Talking to your boss is only going to get you in trouble. Why did we do all this just for you to turn yourself in now?”

“I didn't say I was turning myself in,” Veronica told her. “I'm just thinking you're repeating work that the FBI has probably already done, and we could skip having you do that while we focused our energy on places that they wouldn't be looking. We know something that they don't—JD survived. And we don't know where he is, which remains a problem.”

“If my brother had killed a bunch of people to stop this murder or even just one, we'd have heard about it by now.”

“I'm not saying he killed anyone.”

Enid sat back in her chair. “You think this person got to him?”

Veronica didn't know what to think anymore. They'd gone after the most likely suspects, and since neither of them seemed very likely, she supposed it was possible JD had eliminated them and moved on already, and they might not ever know if he was actually here. 

“I don't know. As much as I'm a bit worried by his silence, it's not like Jay would call either of us until it was all over, and he might have had do to some traveling, too,” Enid said. “Besides... I'm not sure he'd even call you after it was over.”

“What?”

Enid sighed. “As much as he is hung up on you in more ways than I want to think about, any further connection between you and him becomes suspicious. Probably what he'd do was spread word of Judas Dane's retirement, something ridiculous like losing the ability to contact the spirits, and he'd never speak to you again because you can't have a career in the FBI with him in your life.”

“You were the one who told me we could have a good thing going if he kept up his act and you did illegal hacking for me on the side.”

“Except this whole thing is going to bring down way too much scrutiny on the Judas Dane persona, which won't hold up as legitimate. If we were to go into business, it would be with someone he hadn't faked into existence without so much as a driver's license to back him up.”

“He drives.”

“Yeah, and if that car is registered in Judas Dane's name, I'll dance naked in Times Square. I know he doesn't have a driver's license in Judas Dane's name. Part of his schtick was to tell people he couldn't drive because he never knew when the spirits would talk to him, so he didn't ever let a client see him drive. I was chauffeur as well as receptionist and hacker.”

“You already know who that car is registered to. I'm sure the DMV is an easy hack for you.”

Enid smiled. “I suppose I do at that. Or did you think I just called him Jay because I refused to use Judas when we weren't working?”

“So he goes around as Jay?”

“I think he's used just about any variation of the combinations that keep his initials JD. And no, he doesn't, or me knowing would have been a lot more obvious to him. The car's registered to one set of initials, his work persona was another, and a different set sits on the board of those shell companies.”

Veronica nodded. That made sense. He'd always preferred his initials, and using variants on the names would allow him to keep them even if he didn't actually tell people to call him JD these days. “All right. So what are we missing that he found without your hacking?”

“Jimmy Hoffa?”

“Very funny.”

Enid shrugged. “With Jay, it could be just about anything.”

* * *

“You're wrong. My son has no part in any of this.”

“That sounds very desperate and like you're trying to convince yourself of that, not me,” JD told Richards, shaking his head. He'd known that Richards was involved before he came here, and he was almost certain the other part of this was his son. It had been a bit of a twist to have him claim innocence of the murder and inciting his son to it, but that didn't mean he wasn't still behind most of this.

His obsession with Veronica was a dangerous thing, and it wasn't just her it had damaged. Richards had not just manipulated her, he'd obstructed justice in more than one case, and that would put every case he ever worked in jeopardy.

JD should know. He'd chosen his own path and made sure that he never appeared all that legitimate because he knew what would happen if his past was ever exposed. Two wrongs didn't make a right, and no matter what good he'd arguably done as Judas Dane or before he took up that identity couldn't wash away what he'd done with Kurt and Ram or even with Heather, though that one had more leeway.

Poison like that should have taken hours to claim her, not an instant, and who the hell would have drank more than a sip after that first taste? The puke Veronica wanted to see should have happened, and that would have been it.

Instead, Heather died, they faked a suicide to cover up the accident, and he'd thought that bonded them for life.

He should have known better.

“I know he couldn't do this. He was a good boy.”

“Come off of it. You're an agent, and if you were any good at your job as that office and position suggests, you weren't home very often when he was a kid. You saw him at night to tuck him in, maybe, though most likely on holidays and birthdays, with the odd school event when your wife nagged you into it. That's resentment step one, and it was apparently too good a start for your kid.”

“Screw you. You know nothing about it.”

“No, I suppose I wouldn't. My dad wasn't really a workaholic. I'd have preferred it if he was, to be honest,” JD admitted, knowing it didn't make much difference if he said that truth in all this.

“You're wrong. It didn't turn him into a killer. He's never been that bitter. We get along fine.”

“That was the kind of delusion my father had about me. We had a running joke, us. I'd call him 'Son,' and he'd call me 'Dad.' We were codependent in a frightening way, and I think he liked that, liked to believe that we were still friends and got along great, that me stepping in to pay bills and act like the adult half the time was me accepting what he did to me. I didn't, and I didn't know that was what he was thinking until years had passed and I'd read dozens of psychology books. I was too messed up to realize half the stuff he did that screwed with my head. I mean, I knew it was fucked up, but I didn't know just how badly he'd warped and twisted everything until even the things I thought I understood were lies and that he'd manipulated me into doing so many things I didn't want to thinking I was doing them to spite him when it was what he wanted all along. I don't have any doubts that a parent can make you a killer. They don't even need the psychology books or half of my father's methods.”

“You're insane.”

“I am, but so are you. Your relationship with Veronica is twisted, and it's very likely what broke your son as well,” JD told him. “Of course, on that score, I think your wife might have helped a little.”

“She was bitter after the divorce, but that didn't mean she poisoned my son's mind and made him a killer.”

“Respectfully, I disagree,” JD said. “Your ex-wife's name is Courtney, isn't it?”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enid uncovers more in her hack as JD puts more of the pieces together for his captive audience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think overconfidence tends to be a weakness of JD's.

* * *

“Define anything.”

“Do I have to make you get me another coffee so you'll be quiet?”

“I'll get you an endless supply if we find this person and your brother hasn't done anything to them or any of those girls,” Veronica said. She wanted to know who was copycatting those murders, and she wanted to know before they killed again.

Or before someone started mimicking the deaths of Kurt and Ram. She'd been watching for it ever since the case first reached her, but she hadn't seen any cases, federal or local with a double suicide pact that could have been based off the two of them.

She didn't know why. She wished she could ask JD about that, if he really did have all that psychology to back him, since he would have a better reason for why someone would choose Heather's death—the accident—to copy to punish her over the one where she'd actually pulled the trigger.

“Well, good news is that I did, in fact, break into the account,” Enid said. “Bad news is that it's a throwaway as well.”

“It is?” Veronica asked, frowning. “Don't they have to register with phone numbers these days?”

Enid looked up at her. “Most of the big email services require that, yes, as a way of limiting spam accounts, but there are ways around that. Still... I'm impressed. Jay wouldn't even have known to ask that. He really does try to avoid technology.”

“I can't believe he'd leave himself completely vulnerable by not being able to use it, though,” Veronica said. Enid frowned. “Yeah, he may have played you there, getting you to do all the computer and tech stuff so that you and everyone would believe he couldn't when he has to know more than he says. He's got other identities. He destroyed his birth certificate. And how many places have you two broken into over the years?”

“Anything high security was me,” Enid said, fidgeting, “but he's pretty good at picking a lock. I told you I don't believe what he told me about how he learned, but he does know that much on his own, and that's not that high tech. His car is old school, and I think it's a muscle car, but don't quote me on that because I don't know cars. It doesn't have anything computer operated in it, though, that's for sure. And I'm also pretty sure he works on that thing himself.”

Veronica kind of figured JD would have made a sexy mechanic, and she'd pictured that a few times in the early days of their relationship, watching him work on his bike and getting worked up herself for completely different reasons. She shook that off, not wanting to go there again.

“Still, in a world this dependent on technology, he'd stick out for not using it, which would mean he'd have to have some knowledge when he wants to blend in, and he's not always about the robe and over the top act.”

“Agreed,” Enid said. “He's the master of understated and unnoticeable when he's not in the robe. That's the point, I think. He's all about people not knowing the real him.”

Veronica grimaced at that reference, even if Enid might not have made it on purpose. “Is there anything in that account of use?”

“Well, I'm thinking the other account he used to create this one is bogus, and the phone number is a dead end—very likely a burner that was trashed and gone since before he actually made contact with Abby Marten. However, we do have some hope yet.”

“I don't suppose he was kind enough to leave the emails he sent to her in his inbox?”

“No, that would have been way too easy, but then our genius did leave up the reddit post, so I'm still hopeful he made a mistake.”

“Like forwarding any emails from this account to his main or that alternate you found?”

“Exactly.” Enid put her hands to her temples. “Remind me next time to find us a case where the killer is not as good with technology as I am.”

Veronica managed a bit of a smile. “I'll get you another coffee.”

* * *

“You're reaching. Courtney has nothing to do with this, just like my son has nothing to do with it,” Richards said. “I've had enough of this. I'm going to get my agents here, and you're going to be arrested. And I don't care what fake psychic bullshit you pull. You won't fool them or convince them of anything. You'll go down for breaking and entering and fraud. Assaulting a federal agent.”

“I haven't done shit to you and you know it,” JD said. “Threatening you is one thing, but you can't even prove that, as there's not going to be much evidence I was even here. You can claim all you want, but you'll look like the delusional man that you are. And if I were to add in any of what I know about your obsession with Veronica or the infamous Rosebud, you're history and you know it.”

“You don't know anything.”

“I know that before she married you, your wife Courtney also attended Westerburg High. I know she was never a Heather and deeply resented that fact. I know she hated Heather Chandler but chose to profit from her death with fifteen minutes of fame just like the other kids. I know she also hated Veronica Sawyer and took great pleasure in spreading the rumor that Veronica had given oral sex to Ram Sweeney and Kurt Kelly at the same time. That girl would have been a challenger for Chandler's empty throne, but Duke stepped into it first, and Veronica knocked her off of it. You think any of that sat well with your ex-wife? Hell, no. And then, the pièce de résistance—her husband leaves her for Veronica Sawyer—”

“I didn't leave Courtney. She left me. It was about her career, not mine.”

“You are such a deluded idiot,” JD said. “So she fed you a line about her career and you believed that? This girl didn't have life skills. She had Daddy's money and figured on her husband having more. Trouble was, the rich college boy she snagged went into public service and disappointed her. Then he threw her over for Veronica Sawyer—and don't say you didn't, idiot. As soon as you love someone else in a relationship, you've abandoned your spouse. You're not showing her affection, that's for your other flame. Anything you gave Courtney was token, perfunctory. Your heart was out of your marriage long before she grew balls and left you for it.”

Richards looked like he was considering going for the safe. JD knew if he did, he could still shoot the man before he opened it, so he wasn't worried. He pushed on, knowing he had little choice.

“The really messed up part of this whole thing is that you had a kid. And one thing any kid in a divorce will tell you is that both parents generally want you to believe that the other is the bad guy. Maybe you never badmouthed your wife, but I can almost guarantee you she did. She made you the monster of all this as her heartbroken son was trying to understand why his family fell apart. She gave him an answer—your cheating heart and the woman you loved. This thing festered in your kid as he grew up, and to him you must have been the most unfeeling bastard in the universe because you didn't see it. You didn't even man up and go for the woman you wanted so badly you wrecked their lives. You just pined for her in secret and messed with her head to keep her close. Had your son focused his homicidal tendencies on you, I think I'd almost have admired him for it, but he wasn't ready to stop there. I figure he had to know why Daddy was such an ass, so he started hacking you.”

Richards tensed, going pale.

“Yeah, I knew you had to have some records of what you knew about Veronica. You probably compiled them thinking you'd turn them over to the right people someday, if you ever thought that Veronica was as bad as her past implied and if you hadn't decided to blame all of it on her boyfriend. You may also have been listening in on her therapy sessions. I could see that from you, since you're that kind of stalker. Your son took all you had and all his mother fed him, and he decided that Veronica got to pay. That's where it would really hurt you, wouldn't it? Going for her. Of course, if it got exposed that you knew all about her part in those deaths back then, you'd be ruined as well, but first it had to be exposed. And then you dragged your feet about it, not giving it the media attention it deserved—part because Veronica was convinced it had to be a dead man doing the killing but part because you knew that she would go down as soon as you did. You couldn't hide it forever, though, and with that fifth body you had to go to the press.

“You played right into his hand, though, because all he was really waiting for was you to make it public. I figure soon we'll see imitations of Kurt and Ram and when someone goes looking for evidence, they'll find it all on Veronica's computer. She'll be the one who made contact, who befriended the girls and then killed them. She'll be the one who sets up the next Kurt and Ram. Or so it will appear to your fellow agents.”

“They'll find evidence that was planted. They'll know it wasn't her.”

JD snorted. “If your son is as good a hacker as I believe he is, he already got into Veronica's schedule and made sure she wasn't working and had no good alibi for any of the deaths. You helped with that, since you were the one keeping Veronica from the only friends she had.”

“Excuse me? How the hell do you figure that?”

“Oh, didn't I mention your son got access to Veronica's accounts through you? That you asked him to backdoor them for you once you understood what he could do with computers? You probably played it off as a concerned friend or boss, but your son wasn't an idiot. He knew what you were doing. He just hated Veronica enough to let you do it.”

“You're making that up.”

“No. I'm not. See, I may not know much about technology, but I know people. And I know that Betty Finn and Martha Dunnstock were real, true friends to Veronica who had no intention of falling out of touch. They'd still be the type reaching out with emails or phone calls, but that was a simple enough fix for you. You send them each an email saying the number has changed, give them one that goes straight to voicemail all the time. Then you make sure that the emails from them get marked as spam or auto-forwarded to your account so she never sees them.”

“I never did that.”

“The burner phone is sitting in your desk's top right drawer,” JD told him, wondering if he'd still deny it after that. “I'm betting there's several missed calls from both of them. You had all you needed there. Veronica's guilt did the rest. She assumed she deserved to lose those friends, so she never pushed. She never got into Facebook, and since that was her main connection to either of the Heathers, she didn't have support from McNamara, either. You got her to where all she had was you, and things were just where you wanted them. You even had this serial killer making things easy for you, since you got to put her on leave and you were just waiting for someone to suggest the threat to her so you could put her in protective custody. Let me guess, that was when you were going to make your big move.”

“You're insane. No one will believe this. No one will ever find any of that evidence.”

“That's because you think Enid is nothing but my innocent little assistant. I have to give her credit, she's good at that act. She even fooled me at times, but that woman is a hacker to put your son to shame. She'll find all of this. My bet is she's already past the reddit accounts to your son's emails, and from there it's not going to be a very hard stretch to find you. All it will take is for Veronica to recognize one picture of your son that he passed off to the girls he seduced. As soon as she spots the boy she knows well as yours, it's all over. She'll know you were involved.”

Richards hung his head. “I suppose there's nothing for it, then. I have to end this.”

“You can redeem yourself a little. You were unaware of your son's involvement. I know people will struggle to believe that, but I bet he'd convince them when he talks about how much of an idiot you are,” JD told him. He started across the room, wanting to use this moment, knowing how easy it would be for Richards to go the opposite of the way he wanted—needed—this to go. At least he was reasonably sure that Richards was unarmed and he still had the upper hand. “We have to stop your son before anyone else dies. Make the call. Have his cellphone traced. Call him. I don't care. Just get him found before he kills anyone else.”

Richards nodded. “I suppose that's the way it has to be.”

“There's no saving yourself here, no saving Veronica. Everyone is going down for this. The truth has to come out. Your son forced that on everyone. All you can do now is stop it from getting worse.”

“Except you're the only one who has put it all together. Your assistant doesn't know or you'd have those emails and everything to dump on my desk and mock me. You'd have proof if she'd hacked all of it. You're probably bluffing about her, and you know what?” Richards asked, his smile a bit off-center. “It's a risk I'll take.”

JD was still the one with the gun, but Richards moved faster than he'd expected, rounding the desk and slamming him back against the wall. Pain tore into his side, and he knew he'd been stabbed even as the gun did go off. The shot went wide, sounding like it hit the desk, and Richards slammed his arm into the wall, trying to knock the gun out of his hand. JD swore as Richards bumped the knife in his side and he lost hold of the gun. Smiling in triumph, Richards yanked the knife out, plunging it in again. JD hissed in pain, not thinking he could win this one.

He just had to hope that Enid and Veronica found the link to Richards' son before that little bastard found them.

* * *

Veronica carried two very hot cups of coffee over to the table, thinking she might have to cut Enid off soon. She could tell the younger woman was getting punchy, and since she'd done all the driving, she hadn't slept. She was not in good shape right now. They needed to finish this and get Enid a bed.

And find her wayward brother, who was probably in trouble.

“Here. Any progress?”

“You doubt me. This offends me,” Enid said, taking the coffee and inhaling the aroma like she was getting high off the fumes again.

“I didn't say that. I'm just hoping we have something we can use now,” Veronica told her. “I'm starting to get really worried about your brother. We haven't heard anything from him, and he should have been calling us in triumph by now, right? If he had this guy and had stopped it, he'd be gloating.”

Enid set down her coffee. “Most likely, as he does love fanfare.”

“So the fact that there is none is a bad sign.”

“Maybe, but not necessarily. After all, he does need my help to function like a normal being most days. And I'm here, kicking ass and taking names instead of with him.”

“You have something?” 

“I do. There you have it,” Enid said, pushing the tablet over to Veronica. “Proof that I own the internet.”

Veronica looked at the screen, frowning as she saw the creature on the front. “What even is that?”

“It's a quaggan. Quaggans are cute. Shut up, we're not talking about my home screen,” Enid said, taking back the tablet and signing back in with a frustrated shake of her head and a lot of muttering to herself. “Here. That's what I meant to show you. I found it. Them. Whatever. I traced the emails to his current throwaway. And while it, too, has a pretty bogus name—like anyone would believe that this kid is Nathan Drake, please—he did actually leave some photos in this one, and we have a winner.”

Veronica looked at the picture and choked. “You're sure that's him?”

“Well, if it isn't, he must look pretty close to this because there's no way they'd let him close if he didn't. No, I shouldn't say that. Some people fall for their catfishers and stay with them even if they're straight and the catfisher is gay, but... I think this is still our guy. I don't think he'd risk them running or reporting him if he showed up not looking like the photo. He didn't dare.”

Veronica could see that, since any attention this guy got would get him noticed and make him a suspect in something like this unusual suicide. In the age of social media, he could have been outed in an instant, and he would have wanted to avoid that.

Still...

“It can't be that guy,” Veronica said, shaking her head and feeling the need to run, to flee. “It can't be. That's not him. That... That looks like my boss' son.”

Enid reached over to touch her hand. “Okay, calm down. You look like you're more wired than I am, and I'm the one that's hyped up on caffeine and no sleep and internet triumph. Are you sure about this?”

Veronica nodded. “I've worked with Richards for years. Pretty much my entire career at the bureau. I know him. I know his family. I mean, his son. His wife never showed up to the social functions, and I usually heard about her when she was complaining about how she never saw him. I didn't see many family pictures, but he doted on his son, and there were always a ton of him around. That is his son. That's Brad.”

Enid nodded. “Okay, creepy as hell, but we have a suspect now, so that's a good thing. It also would explain a lot about why we haven't heard from my brother because he would probably rightfully think that you wouldn't believe this without a lot of proof.” 

Veronica still wasn't sure she believed it now. Was this Enid's idea of a joke? Had JD planned all this and framed Richards' innocent son?

“So... we need to go,” Enid said, gathering up her tablet and other things, shoving them in her bag. “Yes. We have to go find out where this kid is, but we're going to need something more than us. Damn, it's not like we can just call in an anonymous tip here. Who would believe it was your boss' son? We are in so much trouble now.”

“We don't know that it's him,” Veronica said, taking her own coffee from the table and following Enid to the door. “We can't actually prove it, either.”

“We will,” Enid said with determination, starting across the lot. Veronica winced, not sure when the sun had gone down and everything got dark. Maybe she should have gone to dinner with Heather McNamara. She hadn't done anything of use, and did she really trust this new lead from Enid?

Enid was the hacker. Veronica couldn't do any of that, so she couldn't be sure any of that was real. What if JD and Enid had cooked all of this up to screw with her?

“Excuse me,” someone said from behind them. “I was wondering if you could help me. I seem to be lost. I think I missed my exit.”

“Uh, the highway is back that way,” Enid said, “And aren't you out kind of late on a school night?”

“I could say the same thing about you.”

“Screw you,” Enid said, more than a little defensive about how young she looked. “And take a hike before the FBI agent over there arrests you.”

“For what? I was asking for directions.”

Veronica swallowed. “What about murder? Or did you really think I wouldn't recognize you, Brad?”


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica is confronted by the killer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of those hard parts of a story. It feels like there's so much pressure to get it right, and I never do when it comes to action. And sometimes pacing. I suppose I could list a hundred other things, too, but I'm just hoping this works.

* * *

_“I've heard it said that you never really know what it feels like to be alive until you're dying,” Big Bud said, leaning into JD's ear, the words making him shudder. He wanted to get up, to fight, to run, but he couldn't move. The drugs were still too strong, keeping him weak and helpless. “Is that how it is for you, Jason?”_

_“I'm not dead,” JD whispered. His throat felt dry again, and he wanted some water. He didn't bother asking his father for that. If his father gave him anything, it wouldn't be water, and he didn't want that._

_“Everyone thinks you are,” Bud said, touching his cheek with a smile. “I don't mind that at all. It's been so good having you all to myself. I get tempted sometimes to give up the old demolition and just stay here with you. After all, I've got them all on tape, so why do I need to be anywhere else?”_

_JD turned away from him. He didn't want to see those tapes again. For all that he had every single building on film, there was only one he really replayed, and the image of that library going down would have been burned into his memory without any tape._

_“I was thinking of letting someone else in on our little secret,” Bud said, moving his hand down JD's chest. He braced himself for the blow, knowing his father would use the gunshot wound to make sure it hurt even more. The hand rested just above it, threat implied but not carried out. “I don't know. What would you think if I let Mr. Woods know?”_

_JD gagged. “Are you asking me to beg? You hate begging.”_

_“So he still scares you,” Bud said, and JD tried not to react to the hand moving again. He didn't want to think about Woods. “That's good to know. And pathetic, all at the same time. Come on, Jason. You're dead. What do you have to be afraid of?”_

_That wasn't a fair question. He wasn't dead. He had to fear everything he'd been terrified of when he was alive, even if he'd thought he stopped being scared of it years ago._

_“Why do you need Woods if you're giving up demolition?”_

_“Good question. Nice to see there's still some brain left in you,” Bud said, patting his cheek. “I might not need Woods at all, not for that. I could take that money of mine, shore it up in a place with good interest, and retire at this ripe young age.”_

_“So you want to be the one that's dead?”_

_Bud laughed. “Oh, Jason. You're missing the point again. If I retired, I really would be alone with you all the time. And wouldn't you just love that?”_

_He wouldn't beg. He swore it. He knew it wouldn't do any good, and he wasn't going to give his father anything close to what he wanted, though he no longer knew what that was. He didn't know much of anything anymore._

_“I think what I'd love is to stay dead this time.”_

* * *

“You know me,” Brad said. “I'm surprised.”

“Why would you be?” Veronica asked, confused. “I worked with your father for years. He had pictures of you on his desk. He was so proud of your plans for college. He was sure you were going to do great things.”

Enid shook her head. “I know parents have blinders when it comes to kids sometimes, but damn. Someone's a bit delusional.”

Veronica gave her a look. She couldn't afford to make Brad angry. Neither of them could. Veronica knew that Brad was armed, even if that gun was in his pocket now. He wouldn't have wanted to be obvious when he tried to pass himself off as a tourist, but he wouldn't have come to them without some kind of weapon or means of subduing them. He was not here to talk.

“Once I knew someone had gotten into my email, I knew that I'd be recognized. It was only a matter of time, since Dad told me about the tip they'd gotten about the reddit accounts. He didn't even know what reddit was, the idiot.”

“If your father told you about it, why didn't you erase what was there?” Veronica asked, still trying to buy time anyway. He claimed to know they were onto him, but if he did, why hadn't he done something about it? They wouldn't even know if not for Enid's hack, and she must have been ahead of the FBI for Brad to be standing in front of them.

“The accounts all piggybacked off each other,” Enid said. “He used them to create the new ones, and he was in the middle of a new seduction. He might have been hoping it would take the FBI longer to find it than it took me—and they had the tip longer and still apparently had nothing since he's walking free—so he could finish things with this new girl first.”

Brad smiled grimly at her, looking more deranged than JD had at his worst. “You're way too smart for your own good. I don't know how she found you or what you're doing here, but I do know one thing—I don't need you.”

“No,” Veronica said, moving toward him. She slammed him into the car next to Enid's, hearing the gun go off as she did. He grunted when he hit the car, and she didn't know why he didn't shoot her then. He managed to pull his hand from his pocket and used both hands to knock her to the side, shattering the back window of the sedan with her head. She stumbled, not steady on her feet. He grabbed hold of her and hit her head against the metal part of the door.

Her head spun, and she thought she would puke.

“I'm not done with you yet,” he said, dragging her back to the trunk as she struggled in his grasp. She didn't see Enid. Where was Enid? “Tonight was supposed to be Ms. Duke's night to die, but you just had to go and interfere in that. It was time. Time to go back to Westerburg and make them all pay, but you just had to ruin everything. Again.”

Veronica tried to twist in his grip, to free herself, but he smashed her head against the trunk, and everything went dark.

* * *

Enid did not like bullets.

She really didn't like bullets that slammed her into the pavement and made everything hurt. She also hated blood, and the sight of her own made her nauseous.

So she was in a really, really, bad mood when she dragged herself up off the ground, pulling herself into her car and collapsing into the driver's seat. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to breathe for a bit. She'd just assume nothing vital got hit since she was still breathing and ignore that for now.

She laughed at herself even as she dug out her phone. She had to get some kind of emergency services here.

Screw the phone. She was hacking the FBI and putting word out about that kid and his car and him taking Veronica. She owed the other woman at least that much. Veronica had tried to keep her from getting shot, though she'd still been hit, and somehow Enid didn't think a “quick” death by poison was what that freak had in mind for Veronica.

She pulled open her tablet, smiling when she saw her backdoor to the FBI was still in place. They hadn't caught it since she'd gotten the information on those lobby guards, which was good because she needed it. She created the alert for all state and local agencies to find that car and a second one for herself, since she was starting to get light-headed and might just be bleeding out over here.

She was going to have to get a new car.

Her brother owed her for this.

Assuming he was still alive, because she didn't think he'd have let anyone close to Veronica if he had any choice about it.

She refused to think about that. She had work to do. A lot of it, and she didn't have much time before she passed out.

She hated bullets.

* * *

When Veronica woke, she expected to find herself in the darkness of a closed trunk. She knew that was what was coming when he pulled her back there and hit her head against it.

This was not a trunk. This was some kind of room. She couldn't see much of it because of the dark. A bit of light came out of a window or something on the far side of the room. She started to rise and found herself shackled to the chair. She swore, wishing she'd trusted herself to carry her backup. She hadn't bothered with it after they'd taken her main, since there was still a part of her doubting that JD was alive and Enid was real.

Now she knew better. They were both real. She was sure of that. She didn't know if either of them were alive, not when JD had been MIA for this long and Enid had been shot, but she was sure they were real.

She should have had the gun and shot Brad when she first saw him, not hesitated.

“Finally awake?”

The voice from the darkness was creepy as hell. She swallowed, looking over at Brad. Her head throbbed again at the sound of his voice, and she wanted to puke. She leaned over the side of the chair, but nothing happened.

“Good,” Brad said, sounding pleased. “I wanted you awake. I wanted you to know all the damage you've done.”

“The hell are you talking about?” Veronica demanded. The damage she'd done? She hadn't killed all those girls. Even if she was responsible for Heather, Kurt, and Ram's deaths, that did not mean that she was to blame for all of this. She had done everything she could to keep more kids from dying. She should have stopped JD sooner, but she'd still ended it before anyone else died.

Well, there was Big Bud, but JD's part in that was still debatable, and she wasn't so sure she cared about Big Bud dying, not if half of what she now knew about him was true. 

“You didn't even know Heather Chandler,” Veronica said, not sure why this was worth exposing. And why like this? If Brad wanted justice for Heather, why not just expose Veronica outright? “She died before you were born.”

“You think this is about Heather?” Brad snorted. “You're a fool. This is about you.”

“Me? You and I have never met. The hell are you talking about?” Veronica didn't know what to think of this. He had no reason to hate her. It didn't make sense. “I have never done anything to you.”

“You ruined my life.”

“How did I do that?” Veronica had to know. She could not remember anything bad in Brad's life, not that Richards had told her about, and it didn't make any sense for him to hate her that much.

“You have no idea, do you?” Brad shook his head. “You honestly haven't seen it. He's obsessed with you.”

“What?”

Brad laughed. “Still don't get it? My dad. That loser has been hung up on you since forever. He left my mom for you.”

“He did?” Veronica gagged. She'd never known that. She had thought it was about his wife's career. That was what Richards told her. He never once said he liked her. He called her a capable agent. He didn't tell her that he saw her as a woman most of the time, and now he was in love with her? How was that even possible? How had she missed it? She'd lived through a man obsessed with her before—JD—and she had thought she was oversensitive to that. Not that she'd fail to see it at all. “He... he never said anything. Never told me how he felt. I... how is that even possible? This is a mistake. Richards isn't in love with me. He... he's a friend. My boss. That's it.”

“You are so stupid. I don't know how he could ever have loved you. You're nothing.”

“I think you have to be wrong. Your father didn't love me. He couldn't.”

“He shouldn't have. He had my mom, but then you came along, and he threw us away for her. We had nothing, and he wouldn't even admit that he loved you. He asked me to hack your email, but he still wouldn't admit he was obsessed with you.”

“You... hacked my email?”

“It wasn't hard. He wanted access—and so did I. I'd already decided I was going to make you pay, but I needed access to a lot more than your files—I needed his. And he gave it all to me. For you.”

Veronica felt sick. This couldn't be possible. How could Richards do that? He was an agent. She'd always thought he was a good one. This couldn't be happening. He'd not only betrayed her, he'd betrayed the agency. His son was a psychotic killer. He'd murdered five girls to punish her—and his father—and Richards—had he known? Did he know what a sick fuck his son was?

Had he let Brad get away with all this? Was that why he'd kept it quiet? It wasn't about her recommendation or keeping people from panicking. He'd done it to save Brad.

“Now that I have you, we can get started. Those other girls, they died quick. I added a little something to the drain cleaner, sped it up. From what I could tell, that Heather's death must have been some kind of fluke, and I couldn't take that risk of it not killing them fast enough. They couldn't survive. Couldn't tell anyone about me.”

“You don't deserve to have anyone talk about you,” Veronica said. “You do deserve to rot in prison for the rest of your life. Or the death penalty. You could get that, and it would be fine with me.”

“What about you, Veronica Sawyer? You killed Heather Chandler. You killed Ram Sweeney. You killed Kurt Kelly. You killed Jason Dean.”

She didn't know where he got that information, but he was wrong. “Heather's death was an accident. JD killed Ram. I only shot Kurt. And JD blew himself up.”

She didn't know why she'd lied about that last one. Would it have made a difference if she said JD was alive as of a day or so ago?

She doubted it. Somehow she was to blame for all of this even if it sounded a lot to her like the blame actually fell with Richards and whatever twisted obsession he apparently had with her. God. If that was true, it almost made JD seem sane, and that was just wrong.

Brad leaned over her, knife in hand. “Now we start.”

* * *

If Veronica had ever figured out for sure what she owed for the deaths she'd caused, accidental or otherwise, she thought maybe in some way she'd paid that debt in blood by now. She'd tried to do good work since she graduated, wanted to make things right, and while she'd known that was impossible, saving lives and writing wrongs—that had to mean something, didn't it?

She supposed she could have tried serving her time and doing good after that, though it would have likely not worked. She knew how difficult it was for someone with a criminal record to get hired anywhere, and she never could have become an agent with a record. That part of helping would have been completely impossible.

That didn't mean she couldn't have found other ways. JD had.

She wasn't sure that counted, but he was different now, supposedly.

Still, she swore it wasn't just the concussion. She could hear her blood dripping onto the floor, and Brad was getting more insane by the second as he stopped and muttered to himself about how best to keep cutting her.

He didn't have much experience with a knife, and she'd like to use that, but she was cuffed to the chair and not going anywhere.

“Should mark you every which way like the glass would have done her.”

“You're sick.”

“Shut up. You're not supposed to talk,” he said, putting the knife right in front of her eyes again. She gagged, going cross-eyed and feeling nauseous again.

“Why not? Does my voice make me more human? Am I less of a monster then? Do you feel any remorse? I suppose not. Those girls thought they loved you, that you loved them, and they died. And you think your father loved me, so you have to hurt them and me and what happens if none of that was even real?”

“It's real. I know it's real. I know he loved you. I know he covered up what you did. I wanted to expose it, but he kept hiding it. And then he didn't hide it anymore, but you found someone to help you, someone instead of him, and that wasn't his plan. Wasn't mine. Still, when little Ms. Duke died, you'd have broken for good, wouldn't you?”

“No.” If JD coming back from the dead hadn't done that, nothing would.

“I will make you pay for this. All of this.”

“No, Brad,” Richards said from across the room. They both turned to see him in the light, holding his gun on his son. “You're going to let her go.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica fights to survive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was peacefully trying to sleep when a giant spider came up and attacked me. I'm more than a little of an arachnophobe, and that was traumatic enough to make sleep impossible, so I finished this chapter I'd started before attempting to sleep.

* * *

“Dad,” Brad said with no shortage of bitterness in his voice. “How did you know where I was?”

“As soon as I knew what you were up to, I knew you'd come here, to the cabin. It was our special place when you were a child,” Richards said, and Veronica felt a bit sick at hearing that. If Richards knew what Brad was doing, why had he only come now?

“I'm not saving your whore,” Brad said, and Veronica pulled on the cuffs, wishing she could get at him. She'd never slept with Richards. She'd never even thought of him like that. It almost disgusted her. He was a friend, a bit of a mentor, her boss. She hadn't crossed any lines with him, and she hadn't wanted to, but somehow she'd still been punished for it.

She wasn't the only one. Five innocent girls had died.

Maybe six, if she counted Enid, but Veronica didn't want to count Enid. That girl—woman—was resourceful, and if she hadn't been fatally shot, she'd found a way to get herself help and maybe even bring the whole of the internet down on Brad.

Well, Veronica could dream, right?

“Listen to me, Brad,” Richards said. “If you stop now, they don't have to know it was you. We can still fix this. We can save you.”

“Save me?”

“Yes,” Richards insisted, moving closer. “I know how. It'll take some of that stuff you do, the stuff he said you were planning to do to make it look like Veronica did all this, but if you move that, if you pin it on that dead psychic, we'll be fine. All of us. Free and clear.”

Veronica yanked on the cuffs, shaking her head and trying to fight against not only the chair but the voice of reason that was saying Richards was telling the truth. JD had to be dead, or he'd have stopped this. He would have made sure Richards was locked away for what he'd done—and damn it, why did Brad have to be telling the truth about that? Her boss would not be here now trying to convince his son that they could cover this up by pinning it all on JD.

“That won't work,” Veronica said. “He had an alibi for the days the girls died. He didn't do it.”

“What, an alibi from that assistant of his?” Richards scoffed. “She was lying for him, and we knew that back when she showed herself at the office. Besides, she's not here to give that alibi now, is she?”

“She should be dead,” Brad said. “I left her bleeding out in the parking lot. Anyone who finds her will assume she was mugged.”

“Did you bother to take her wallet or her tablet?” Veronica asked. Both men looked at her. “Yeah, I didn't think so. Guess what? Her incriminating hack is all over that tablet of hers, and since you didn't take that, her phone, or her wallet, no one is going to believe it was a mugging. It'll look like a hit.”

Richards gave Veronica his best patronizing smile. “Then I suppose it must have been her murderous employer, cleaning up his loose ends.”

“You son of a bitch,” Veronica spat. If she got free, she'd rip his eyes out or something, kick him the balls... Something. He needed to feel real pain. He needed to suffer, both him and his deranged son. “Enid was not a loose end. She was a smart, determined woman who saw past both of your shit. She found your son when no one else did, and she knew enough not to trust you even when I thought I could. And I bet she would have connected it back to you just like her brother did.”

“The psychic was her brother?”

Veronica almost swore. She hadn't meant to give that away. Still, if there were bodies, it would come out. JD and Enid were half-siblings, related by their shared father. Still, Richards hadn't known that, and neither had Brad. She almost wished JD was alive.

“He probably would have killed you if he knew you'd done anything to her,” Veronica admitted. And she would have let him. She wouldn't have been sorry or felt guilty. This wouldn't have been like Heather or Kurt or Ram. She would have gladly seen these two dead.

“Well, it's a good thing he's already dead,” Richards said. “Come on, Brad. We need to do some damage control. That fake psychic can take the blame for all of this. No one has to know about you.”

Brad started laughing like the lunatic he was. “No one has to know about me, Dad? Don't you understand anything? The whole point of this was so that people would _know._ You knew that whore over there killed Heather Chandler. You knew she killed Ram Sweeney. You knew she killed Kurt Kelly. You didn't do anything to her. You let her get away with it so you could play out some sick fantasy with her, but you never even had the balls to tell her how you felt or take what you wanted. Sometimes I don't even know how you got Mom pregnant. It's like you're not a man at all.”

“I'm more of a man than you'll ever be,” Richards said, and Veronica had a bad feeling about where this argument was going. They were going to fight each other, and only one of them would come out of that alive.

A part of her needed it to be Richards, but she didn't want him to live. She didn't want him to get away with this. He was willing to cover up six murders by his son for what, his pride? Or his own guilt in killing JD and stalking her?

This was such a mess, and she had to find a way out of this that didn't depend on either one of them, though if she used Richards' infatuation with her, maybe she stood a chance, as much as that thought revolted her.

She had a brief thought of how this had worked before, but this time there was no JD waiting behind a tree to shoot Ram.

“Richards,” she said, trying to distract him. “Richards, please...”

He turned away from his son, facing her. “I'm sorry about this, Veronica. It wasn't supposed to be this way.”

“What way was it supposed to be?” Veronica asked. She actually wasn't sure she wanted to know what he'd cooked up for her, but she was still stalling for time here, hoping to use Richards' weakness to get him to free her or give her something she could work with to free herself.

“It was almost time to get you alone,” Richards told her. “I had it all planned. You were going crazy with this case, and I could see it. Everyone could. Soon there wouldn't have been much left of your mind. And you'd come to me.”

“You didn't have to do all this,” Veronica told him. “I... there was always something between us, Richards. We could have had something if I only knew how you felt about me.”

“She's lying. She said a minute ago that she never saw you that way.”

That hadn't been what she said, though it was true. She looked up at Richards, doing her best to convince him. “I had no idea you felt like this. You should have told me.”

Richards smiled at her. “I knew you'd understand.”

“Let me go,” she said. “Please.”

“I can't do that.” 

“You can. You know that even if I could run out of here, anyone who heard me would think that I'm crazy if I try and say it was Brad or you. They won't believe me. I'm too far gone for that.”

Richards patted her cheek. “I know, but you can't ever leave.”

She turned and bit down hard on his hand. He cried out and backhanded her with the gun in his other hand. She tasted blood and glared back up at him. She would get out of here. He could not keep her prisoner here. She wouldn't let that happen. She'd get out, or she'd kill herself trying.

“Come on,” Richards said to his son, backing away from her, holding his hand at an awkward angle. “We need to fix this while there's still time.”

“You don't get to keep her, you asshole,” Brad said, lifting his own gun and firing twice at his father. Richards went down, and Veronica winced. He'd been her better shot at freeing herself, and now he was dead.

“Well, then,” Brad said with a sick smile. “Guess it's just me and you again.”

* * *

Veronica gagged, trying to hold herself together as Brad advanced on her. She pulled the cuffs against the chair again. This thing wasn't metal. It had to give eventually. She just needed to be stronger than she was and break it. If she could get anything free, she'd have a chance. Brad had set the gun down, going back to his knife.

He did want to prolong this, which in some ways worked for her, since she was still alive for now. As long as she was alive, she had a chance.

Brad bent over her, touching the knife to her shoulder. Son of a bitch knew what he was doing, planned on making it harder for her to get free of the chair. He gave her a vicious smile as he plunged the blade into her arm, and she tried and failed not to cry out.

“I told you we were just getting started.”

“I hate grandstanding,” another voice said. “Well, unless I'm the one doing it. Then it's okay.”

Veronica swallowed. That was impossible, wasn't it? It had to be.

Brad turned, looking back. “I take it you're the psychic?”

“No, I'm not a psychic,” JD corrected. “I'm a psychopath, and up until today, I'm pretty sure that was a bad thing. Today, not so much. Drop the knife, or I can drop you.”

“You're supposed to be dead.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” JD said, lifting the gun. That wasn't one of his magnums, but maybe he didn't use those anymore. Still, it looked a lot like the one Richards had been using. “Bad news for you. I'm not, and you hurt people I care about. So unless you want me repay every single one of those cuts you made on her with a bullet, drop the knife.”

Brad shook his head. “I've come too far to stop now. And if you think you can stop me—”

JD fired as Brad started to lunge toward her. Veronica jerked back, trying to avoid the knife, but Brad fell to the side before it hit, bouncing off the chair and landing on his back on the floor.

Veronica looked back at JD. He knelt, setting the gun in Richards' hand. Then he stepped over the body and crossed over to her.

“You're not dead,” she whispered. “Richards said you were dead.”

“Yeah, well, he probably figured I was, since it should have been fatal, but there's this thing about me he didn't know—I've got a lot of old scar tissue there, and that blade didn't go half as far as he thought it did. Still hurts like a bitch, though,” JD told her. He looked over the cuffs and then the chair.

“Brad probably has the keys.”

JD shook his head, pushing on the chair until the wood splintered and it broke, freeing one of her hands. He did the same to the other side, and she rose shakily, knowing it was insane but needing this, needing him. She tried to reach for him and swore when the cuts reminded her of how much they hurt. He moved his arms around her instead.

“It's okay. You're going to be fine. Better than fine. There's about half the FBI's local office on their way here right now. I heard it on the radio in Richards' car.”

“Enid,” Veronica said. “She must have gotten word to them. Oh, God. He shot her.”

“I know. I'm going to find her,” JD said, and Veronica shook her head. He wasn't going anywhere. He had to stay here.

“No. If you go, I'll go insane. How do I know you're actually still alive if you're not here? He told me you were dead, and I want to believe you are, but I don't trust myself—”

“Ronnie, that was Richards. He was screwing with your head. He took that gun in the warehouse. He was trying to make you think you were crazy so you'd resign. He knew about Heather, Kurt, and Ram. He told himself he couldn't turn you in so he manipulated you instead. He let you think you were crazy, encouraged it. You are not crazy.”

“I will be if you go. How do I even—”

He put a finger to her lips. “You know I can't stay. They can't know I was ever here. That's how it has to be.”

She pushed down his hand, disliking the feel of that glove. “I need you.”

“No, you don't,” he told her. “Remember what I told you? You have power I didn't think you had. Well, not anymore. I know how strong you are, but they didn't. Neither one of them understood that, but you've got it. And you're not alone. Betty and Martha never turned their backs on you. They were still trying to contact you. He had his son divert your emails and gave them a fake number to call so you never knew how much they were trying to reach you. You thought you were on your own, and the guilt did the rest, but it doesn't have to be like that.”

Veronica glared at Richards' body. “That bastard. I don't even—why me? Why would he fixate on me? I don't understand. I'm not that special.”

“You were to me,” JD said, combing back some of her hair. “For Richards, though, I think it was always a case of wanting what he couldn't have.”

“What?”

“Remington party, the asshole that didn't deserve your speech?”

“No.”

“He named his son after himself, pretentious bastard, and it helps that he rearranged his face in a drunken car accident, but it's him.” JD looked back at him and shook his head. “And you should probably pick up his ex-wife. She helped push her son toward this, and she might even have known what he was doing.”

“What? Why would—”

“Remember Courtney?”

Veronica swore. “Please tell me this is finally over.”

“It will be,” JD told her. “As soon as I leave.”

She started to protest again, but he cut her off with a kiss, and she stood there in shock, too stunned to react even when he let go. She didn't want to watch him leave, half-afraid he would just disappear. She sat back down and waited.

Agents broke down the door a minute later.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica gives a statement and leaves the hospital with Enid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was interesting trying to make this come together when all I really had was Enid's line about the mummy. Honestly, I had no idea what Veronica should say or do at this point.

* * *

“You feel up to giving a statement?”

Veronica didn't know that she ever would be, not after what she'd learned about Richards or how he'd tried to convince his son they could frame JD and Enid for the murders. Everything she thought she knew about Richards had turned out to be a lie. She had never once seen Brad the annoying Remington frat boy in him, but she knew if she were to access his file, it would be there in black and white. He'd attended Remington.

Maybe that accident that changed his face would have altered him as well, making him grow up a bit and choose the path of an agent. Or maybe he was only ever in it for the power. Veronica didn't know. She also hadn't known that his wife was that Courtney. He'd never really called her by her name, and she know found herself wondering if that was deliberate, that he was trying to keep her from knowing that he was married to a woman who'd hated her in high school. It almost had to be because she couldn't remember seeing any pictures where his wife's face was clear. It was usually obscured by her holding their son or burying her face in his chest as she laughed or something that seemed just as innocent but really wasn't.

So much of it now was both clearer and murkier all at the same time, leaving her feeling unsettled and disoriented, though part of that was the dull pain underneath the medication.

She wasn't a suspect this time, at least, and she wasn't sure if that was because she'd still had a foot attached to the chair or if Enid had been able to tell them more.

“Before I do,” Veronica said. “Enid. Is she—”

“The bullet missed her vital organs, but she almost bled out before help got there,” the other agent said. Veronica struggled to remember his name. Philips, right? Or was it Philip Something or other? “She should pull through, but it's a bit touch and go at the moment.”

“I want to see her.”

“After your statement,” Philips insisted. “We need to know what happened, and you can't consult with other witnesses. You know the drill, Hanson.”

Veronica nodded, shifting in the bed. She didn't remember much after the other agents burst in. They'd spoken to her, but she couldn't answer them, still dazed and in shock from all that happened, still confused and unsure if she'd seen things there, if she'd imagined JD.

“I was with Enid at the cafe. She'd just found something on the computer, and we were leaving to go run down the lead when we were approached by Brad. He tried to pretend he was a tourist at first, but Enid didn't buy it, and I already recognized him as Richards' son. He threatened Enid, I tried to stop him from shooting her. He hit my head against his car three times—no, four. I hit the window, then the metal twice, and the last time the trunk. I assume he shoved me in it. I'm not sure.”

Philips nodded. “There's broken glass at the scene and blood in the trunk. That tallies.”

“I woke up cuffed to the chair. I was in a darkened room, couldn't see much. Richards called it a cabin when he showed up later, but I didn't know that was where I was at first. I... Brad was talking about how everything was my fault because Richards loved me. I... I never saw that. I argued with him, and he... he cut me. He was still cutting when Richards came.”

“We saw the wounds.”

“He'd only done one side at first,” Veronica said, looking at her right arm. It would be scarred, and she wasn't sure she'd ever wear a tank top again, but she was alive because Brad had wanted her to suffer. “Richards came in and told him to let me go.”

“So Richards was there to stop his son?”

She shook her head. “I thought so at first, but he wasn't. He was there to cover it up, everything Brad had done. He said he had someone he could blame for the murders, and he'd need Brad's help, but they could keep it a secret. I tried to convince Richards to free me, but he said I wasn't going anywhere. I... I bit him.”

“Nice job.”

Veronica tried to take the compliment for what it was, but she didn't feel like it was much of anything. It hadn't freed her, hadn't been enough to stop either man. “Richards was still trying to talk his son into doing what he wanted, but Brad refused to let him have me, and he... he shot him. Just like that. I... he shot him, and it looked like he was dead before he hit the ground. I was sure I wasn't going to get out of there.”

Philips looked almost sympathetic. “Take as long as you need.”

“Brad came back to start on my other arm,” Veronica said, gagging with the memory. “I was trying to get free, but the chair seemed to be made too well... I couldn't break the wood... My arm hurt so much... I thought he must have... cut this side deeper... And then...”

“Richards shot his son.”

Veronica stared at Philips. He knew better than to do that, supply answers for a witness. She swallowed. “I...”

“When Brad was loaded into the ambulance, he kept repeating 'he shot me. He shot me.'”

“Brad is alive?”

“For now. He lost consciousness on the way in, and he's still in a coma now,” Philips said. “We just needed you to confirm what we already knew.”

“What?”

“We found evidence on Richards' computer. He was stalking you for years,” Phillips told her. “He had hundreds of photographs, recordings of your calls and times you worked together, and he'd also asked his son for help. Your email was hacked, and a false number was given to at least two of your friends so they could no longer contact you. We also know he was the one to remove the gun from the warehouse shooting. It was locked in his wall safe at his home.”

That seemed a bit impossible to believe, but then if Richards had thought he'd gotten away with it, maybe he had been that stupid.

“We also connected Brad to the reddit accounts used to make contact with the five victims, and have evidence of email communications between him and these girls arranging to meet, including his next victim, Helena Duke, daughter of Heather Duke.”

Veronica nodded. “She's okay, though, right? He never touched her?”

“They were supposed to meet for the second time that night, but he never showed.”

Relieved, Veronica laid back on her pillows. She was doing it again, and she shouldn't. She should stop what had started so many years ago for good and all, admit to all her crimes and tell Philips that JD was there and had been the one to shoot Brad, not Richards. Not her.

She swallowed. “I'd like to see Enid now.”

* * *

“Somehow, when you see it in the movies, it never seems to look like it hurts this much,” Enid said, and Veronica smiled at her words, glad to see the other woman was awake. “Then again, I'm not sure I have much tolerance for pain.”

“I think you have more than you think,” Veronica said. “Since you had to have been the one who sent the FBI after me. I know it wasn't Richards. That bastard figured on keeping me for himself.”

“Is that why you're dressed like a mummy? Because that is not a flattering look,” Enid said, shifting in her bed. “And it's not Halloween, even if we did have a bit of a horror show there for a while. God, my car. I bled all over it. I can never use that thing again. Did I tell you I hate the sight of blood? I do. I hate it so much I can't play a game unless I can turn down or off the gore. And I puked once at the sight of a papercut. That made my mother laugh for days. Shit, Veronica, what the hell am I on? I can't stop talking.”

Veronica laughed, taking a seat in the chair near the bed. “I don't know, but they didn't have me on anything half as good.”

“I so do not feel honored,” Enid muttered. “I may be a little nauseous. You want to switch chairs?”

“To the one that's closer to you? No, I'll pass.”

Enid shrugged and then winced. “It was worth a try.”

Veronica shook her head. “And here I thought we could actually get along.”

Enid grimaced. “You're the only one that's come to see me. I don't know if they couldn't get my mom out of her bottle or it was too much for her to come here from Vegas, but she hasn't so much as called even though she's still technically my next of kin and needed for medical decisions. I'm so loved. Then again... comparing her parenting to that sicko Richards... I'd rather have my drunken washed up blackjack dealing mommy any day.”

“My mom still thinks I should be married to Hanson, but she's still saner than Richards or Courtney, so that's something.”

“Courtney?”

“Yeah. She went to school with us, apparently took up with Richards when he was still in college. She got pregnant, he got in a car accident. He still ended up marrying her, and then he joined the bureau instead of his dad's company. That was just the start of their problems, but when he fixated on me, she lost it. She hated me and Heather Chandler, and after the divorce, she poisoned her son against his father and me. The bureau's not sure they can charge her, but she is partially to blame for why Brad did what he did and killed those girls.” Veronica took a deep breath and let it out. “So am I.”

Enid snorted. “You didn't make the decision to kill any of them. You want to blame yourself for people dying, you stick to the blood that's really on your hands. Don't go taking responsibility for someone else's insanity. That's not how it works. I'm not saying blame it all on my brother, either.”

Veronica wasn't. She couldn't do that any longer. Yes, JD had been there, and he'd tricked her, but she still had her part in those deaths, and she had always known that. She'd tried to make up for them, but never by fully accepting that she had her own part in them. She had let JD take almost all of the blame for Kurt and Ram, even when she had shot Kurt, because she'd believed the bullets were fake. Still, they could have arranged other revenges, and none of them would have involved guns. She could have ignored the rumors. She could have found a way to live with the lies they spread so they didn't die. And she still knew how she could have prevented Heather's death. If she'd poured out that cup, like she should have—and there was no good reason why she hadn't, not even the kiss—then none of it would have happened.

“He really hasn't been here?” Veronica asked, her voice shaking a little as she did.

Enid shook her head. “No visitors. No flowers. Like I said, I'm so loved.”

“Damn it.”

“It's not like I expected it,” Enid admitted. “We both know what he is.”

Veronica shook her head. “That doesn't mean he couldn't have sent an anonymous gift of flowers even if he was too damned scared to show his face.”

Enid tried to force a smile. “I didn't think you were the optimist here.”

“What?”

“He didn't come back, Veronica. He's dead.”

* * *

“Probably should have called a cab,” Enid muttered, eying the wheelchair like it was something out of a horror movie. “Neither of us is really fit to drive.”

Veronica shook her head. She'd put up with whatever pain she felt. She didn't care. The hospital wasn't the place for any real conversations. She'd had to hold back so much of what she wanted to say and what needed to be said as the doctors fought them about releasing either of them. Veronica had been lucky. Brad hadn't hit any blood vessels as he cut, and her wounds were mostly superficial, with a few deep enough she'd feel every time the weather shifted. Enid's blood loss still had her doctors concerned, even if that bullet hadn't gotten anything vital.

It didn't matter. Spoken or not, they both agreed they had to get out of here, and they would, even if it hurt like hell to make the drive.

She needed to tell Enid about the cabin. The longer she went without telling anyone the truth, the more she was almost ready to believe JD had never been there at all, and if he hadn't been, then he really was dead, like Richards said, though they hadn't found his body, either.

And there was a part of her that was starting to think Enid wasn't real again, that this whole thing was some elaborate hallucination, and she was losing it completely.

Damn it, this was why she'd told him not to leave.

She didn't care if a lot of that had been Richards screwing with her head. She still had doubts, and without a lot of proof, she could fall down that same slope Richards had created for her, even if she didn't want to. It would be too easy to do after being saved by a dead man.

“Do you even have a car here? Because I know I don't. My car is evidence. And they should probably burn it when they're done. Too much blood.”

Veronica didn't, and she should have thought of that before. “Damn it. I just want to be out of here and to talk in private.”

Enid nodded. “Well, I want my own bed and I'm so over this place because they refuse to understand that caffeine is just as much a necessity as intravenous fluids, but we can't exactly walk to our houses, now can we?”

Veronica wanted to argue but couldn't. She tried to find some kind of response, but she didn't get one as a knock came on the door.

“I understand I owe you one,” Heather Duke said from the doorway, a bit stiffly, but her eyes softened a bit as she took in the bandages. “A serial killer targeted my daughter. The FBI told me he'd made contact, that he would have killed her if not for you.”

“Heather,” Veronica said, not knowing how to express any of her emotions on that score. “I am so sorry. I didn't know when we spoke that this case connected to your daughter. I'd have warned you if I did. All the others were blondes, just like Heather Chandler. I didn't know about the connection to Courtney or me or the past besides Heather.”

“Don't apologize, you idiot.”

Veronica looked at Enid, who pointed at Heather Duke.

“My daughter is alive because you got too close somehow. That's what I understood from what little they told me. So I owe you, and I don't want an apology. I am doing your wedding for free. Don't argue with me.”

“Um, Heather—”

“No arguing.”

“Actually, the wedding is going to be significantly delayed,” Enid said, giving Heather a winning smile. “But we could really, really use a ride out of here.”

Heather nodded. “Of course. My chauffeur is outside.”

* * *

“You sure you don't want to go to your place?” Enid asked, stepping out of her elevator and leaning against the wall. “I mean, it's got to be better than mine. My fraud of a brother barely paid me as it was.”

“Richards was stalking me. I'm afraid of what I'd find in my place.”

Enid tensed. “Okay, I was already a little nauseous, but that just about made me puke on the spot. We can go over your place with bug detectors tomorrow, when I feel a bit better. And yes, I have all that stuff. Yes, it's a long story. No, I don't know how Jay paid for it, and I would never ask.”

Veronica managed a small smile, but she wasn't as relieved as she'd like to be. She was afraid they'd find a lot more than she wanted to know about. Philips had mentioned pictures, but Richards was stalking her. He probably had video of her, too. It would have explained a lot about her paranoia and inability to feel safe even in her own home.

Though if he had... wouldn't he have known that JD was alive and back in her life?

“You're doing the turquoise thing again.”

“Sorry. I was just trying to figure out Richards... I think it's reasonable to assume he had video cameras set up in my place, but how'd he miss your brother if he did?”

“Oh, I can answer that for you,” Enid said, opening the door to her apartment. “Signal jammer. Big brother never goes much of anywhere without one.”

She waved Veronica inside. Veronica looked around the room, frowning. A studio apartment made sense for Enid, but it was a little awkward all the same. No couch. Just a futon that was clearly the other woman's bed. 

“Uh...”

“I do have another chair. Sorry. I'm not much of one for guests, as my rambling 'no one loves me' speeches will attest.” Enid walked over to the bed and flopped down on it. “This place is also wired with some signal jamming. Not a complete block, I'd die without my wifi, but some. What is it you want to say you didn't dare say before?”

Veronica took the other chair. As a recliner, it wasn't that bad. “Richards told me JD was dead.”

“Damn.”

“He was planning on pinning the whole thing on the two of you. Mostly JD, but you were his assistant. He wanted Brad to take all the stuff he'd done and use it to frame JD.”

“I'd have seen through that in an instant. In fact, I did, though I have to say, it wasn't my brother that was set up,” Enid told her. “It was you. You were supposed to go down for those murders.”

“What the hell? He was torturing me. How'd he expect to get away with that?”

“Um, torturing you was him improvising after he caught on to my hack,” Enid said. “He had to change his plans. Remember, he intended to kill Heather's daughter first. I'd even bet he wasn't going to stop with Helena, but he'd have gone after McNamara's girls, too, maybe all of the Heathers' children. I don't know for sure, but he was twisted enough he might have.”

Veronica nodded. She could see that. Courtney's hatred of them all would have seen to it that every one of the Heathers and Veronica paid. She was a bit relieved she didn't have any kids.

“So... you really think my brother's dead?”

“I shouldn't,” Veronica admitted. “I thought... it's all getting confused now... but I could have sworn he showed up. He shot Brad, not Richards. Brad had already killed his father. Then he helped me free part of myself from the chair and told me about Richards' plan and the connection to Courtney... and left.”

Enid frowned. “Okay.”

“Just... okay? That's all you've got?”

“What do you expect me to say? Jay's kind of good at coming and going as he pleases, but then there's also the fact that you were tortured and my brother didn't stop that or me being shot. I would have expected him to do either of those things. Well, he kind of did if he shot Brad, but if you're not sure he was really there and Richards said he was dead... He must have believed it because he was going to frame him and if Jay was alive, he'd fight that even if it meant revealing his original identity as Jason Dean.” Enid put a hand over her wound, wincing as she continued to think aloud. “So whatever happened between Jay and Richards was before he came after his son, probably not that long after he left us... and if that much time passed... maybe Richards did think he was dead or even... had time to hide the body for later, which would explain why no one has said they found it.”

Veronica sighed. “You're supposed to be telling me I'm not crazy and JD was alive and actually there.”

“Would you make up your mind about these things? You made it sound like you wanted me to prove the dead theory, not the other one. And honestly, I don't know. I wasn't there. I was shot and left behind.”

“Like I had a choice about being kidnapped.”

Enid sighed. “Look, I did everything I could before passing out to undo what Brad did to frame you, but I don't even know if I caught everything because my mind was going as I did it. I think I reversed enough of it that they'd see it was a frame if they do even manage to find it, but who the hell knows?”

“I never said I wasn't grateful. I am. I know I owe you.”

“Are you going to ask me if I think you should tell them about Heather, Kurt, and Ram?”

“Do you think I should?”

Enid shook her head. “No. Even if this was because of you killing Heather by accident—and it wasn't, not completely—so many good things will get screwed over if you do. All of your old arrests—and that's already going to happen to everything Richards touched, no adding fuel to that fire. Should you spend time in prison? Maybe, but if prison really is about rehabilitation, then you've done that, haven't you?”

“Ohio has the death penalty.”

“Which Jay would get, not you, as Heather's death was manslaughter and Kurt's... well, it's not first degree or felony, which I believe is what you need to have a death sentence.”

“So JD would have to die.”

“He already did, technically. Sentence served, we're all good.” Enid laughed, wincing again. “Oh, hell, I think round two of the loopy pills is kicking in. Should not have taken them so close to the house, but I felt like I was dying again...”

Veronica sighed. Enid was fading fast. “I don't know what to do.”

“I think you may be done as an agent, but you're not dead,” Enid told her. “You just have to decide what you're going to do with your life.”

“Your brother said something very like that to me before.”

“If he's not dead, I think we may have to kill him,” Enid muttered, grabbing a pink stuffed animal Veronica assumed was a Quaggan even if the one on the tablet had been blue. “But we'll think about that tomorrow. Too tired now.”

“Yeah.”

“You could go private,” Enid said. “You and me... we're not a half bad team, and what am I going to do with all my nefarious skills if I don't have Jay to use them for? Someone has to keep me kind of honest, or they'll end up being used for evil.”

Veronica laughed. “Get some sleep, Enid.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few plans for what to do next are discussed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ This cutie](https://www.etsy.com/listing/171929604/quaggan-plushie-from-guild-wars-2-will) is Enid's quaggan.
> 
> And I'm thinking I want to leave this here, though I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to do more with them in this universe.

* * *

Veronica would not have thought that she'd find a recliner easy to sleep in, but then she did have a prescription for some heavy duty painkillers—Enid had thought they'd stiffed her in comparison and she was the one shot. Veronica wasn't sure she believed the other woman, it seemed like something either of those two siblings would do, make a fuss about their painkillers when there was no difference at all. It was JD's sense of humor and Enid's as well.

Still, just because she'd managed to fall asleep didn't mean that she wasn't sore. She groaned, wincing every time she moved.

Enid lifted her head up from her pillow. “I know I don't have a cat, and that didn't even sound like a cat. More like something undead and horrifying.”

“Very funny. Enough of the mummy jokes.”

Enid smiled. Then she tried to sit up and did her own groaning, falling back on the bed dramatically. “Kill me now.”

“You fought pretty hard not to die when you were shot,” Veronica reminded her. “And you'd probably be just fine if someone had coffee for you.”

“Maybe,” Enid said. “I would try and get up again for coffee. Yes, I would. Maybe a slushie, but definitely a coffee. Instead, I am going to stay right here with my Quaggan and go back to sleep assuming the walking dead doesn't wake me again.”

“Enid—”

“Wait a minute,” Enid said, sitting bolt upright. “I don't have a pink Quaggan. I mean, I wanted one. I have one in game. I also have a pirate quaggan and a ghost quaggan and a pagan quaggan... I have minis and backpacks and—but I don't have a real life stuffed quaggan. I couldn't justify spending money on it.”

Veronica frowned. Sometimes Enid really didn't make much sense. “Okay, you didn't have one, but you must have bought one because it's in your hands right now.”

“No, Veronica, I'm telling you. I never bought this.”

“You picked it up on impulse.”

“You have to order them online. I would know if I ordered it and it came and I opened it. I didn't buy this. I know I didn't.”

Veronica put a hand to her head. She didn't know why that mattered. “Enid, it's cute, but I don't see why it makes any difference.”

“Because I didn't buy it,” Enid repeated, standing up. “Come on, Jay. I know you have to be here somewhere, and since my apartment's not really that big, I'm pretty sure there's only one place that you can be, and that's just... sad.”

“If you're implying I am hiding in your one and only—and overly girly—bathroom, I'm offended,” JD said, and Veronica almost jumped out of her seat. Enid whirled back to look at him. He stepped in from the balcony with a smirk. “By the way, you both snore.”

“And you're an ass. I thought you were dead,” Enid said, looking like she was having trouble believing what she was seeing. “You know this means we have to kill you now.”

He shook his head. “I know you think you'd like to, but I know something you don't know.”

“You're not left-handed?”

JD gave Veronica a look. She managed to shrug, regretting it because she hurt all over again. “Not sure where that came from, but I'm more ambidextrous, actually. Big Bud kind of made sure of that.”

Enid picked up her quaggan and crossed over to his side. She held it out to him, and he just stared at her. She shoved it almost right up in his face. “Take it. I would hug you, but that's going to hurt like hell, so you have to snuggle this instead. Wait a minute, why am I giving you my comfort quaggan when you let us both think you were dead?”

“Enid's got a point,” Veronica said. “You didn't come to the hospital.”

JD took hold of Enid's hands, lowering the stuffed animal she'd just hit him with. “That hospital was surrounded by the FBI. There was no way I could go in there.”

“Yeah,” Veronica said, “but you didn't even send flowers. No one would have had to know they were from you. Hell, you could have had the quaggan sent to her there. Something. She didn't get anything. She didn't have any visitors besides me.”

He nodded, though when he spoke, he was definitely addressing Enid. “Yeah, I think you might have to go dry her out again.”

“Damn it.”

“Sweet little Niddie. I told you my theory about this,” JD said, combing back his sister's hair and touching her cheek. “She stayed strong when she had you to raise, but once you were all done growing, she didn't need to be strong anymore... and she gave up.” 

“That really doesn't make me feel any better,” Enid muttered. “I still remember what she was like when I was younger. She was a damned good mom. And now? Well, let's just say your crack about the ugly twin was being kind.”

JD nodded. “Come on, darling baby sis. I made you coffee.”

“Did I mention you're my favorite brother?”

“I'm your only brother.”

“What's your point?”

* * *

“You need more chairs,” he told Enid, taking a spot on the far end of her futon, ending up not far from the recliner Veronica had claimed. She was a mess, bandaged up like she was, but somehow she still managed to look good. That strength she kept doubting, it still showed, and he liked seeing it.

“I have no friends,” Enid reminded him, taking the other end of the futon. “That aren't online, anyway.”

Veronica shifted in her chair. “What do you consider us, then?”

“Well, he's family,” Enid said, pulling her quaggan back into her arms and managing a tired smile for him. “And if you ever go through with the wedding, you can be, too.”

Veronica grimaced, reaching for a discarded throw pillow and hurling it at Enid. “That's not funny.”

“I'm almost afraid to ask what I missed,” he admitted, looking in between the two of them. “Though you two were busy while I was gone.”

“Busy?” Enid asked, reaching over to whack him with the stuffed animal. “We practically solved the case without you. Certainly no thanks to you. I had to hack reddit and email all while investigating Heather Duke and Heather McNamara under a very brilliant cover and then I got shot. Did I mention I got shot? Exactly what did you do?”

“Killed someone.”

Enid swallowed. “Um...”

“Actually, Brad's still alive, just in a coma,” Veronica said, and he looked over at her. She nodded. “And what you did worked. They think Richards shot him. No one but me knows you were ever there.”

He put a hand to his side, which was both itching and throbbing again, a very irritating combination. “If things had gone to plan, I never would have been.”

He should have been able to stop Richards. Even if his son was rogue, he could have used Richards or even Veronica to lure the bastard out, but he hadn't gotten further than that conversation with Richards that almost got him killed. Oh, sure, it confirmed all of the suspicions rattling around in his brain, put things together and filled in the blanks, but if that jerk hadn't gone for that same old spot everyone seemed to hit, JD would be dead now. Veronica, too. Maybe Enid.

“So your plan sucked,” Enid told him. “I think next time you should just come to us with your theory instead of going off like an idiot to have the grand reveal at the end. After all, Sherlock Holmes _is_ a dick, and you're no longer pretending to be a psychic.”

He gave her a look. He hadn't said that. Judas Dane had to retire and disappear, but as most people had not even seen his face, that wouldn't be so hard. He had other options, though Judas was the most obvious one for this line of work.

Veronica sat up, frowning at him. “What, you're not going to stop being a fake psychic?”

“Judas Dane is done, but I haven't made any decisions about my next life yet,” he answered. “If I knew that, I'd probably already be there.”

“Without telling either of us?”

He shrugged. “You'd both be better off without me.”

“Enid doesn't think so. She was trying to convince me to go private so I could keep her nefarious side in line,” Veronica said, smiling. “Though I'm not sure why she thought you did that for her.”

“Are you kidding? I make her look innocent,” he said, laughing, but forced to stop a minute later. The pain was so bad he had to open up his shirt and look at the bandage. Damn, it was leaking through again.

“Oh, hell,” Enid said, looking like she might puke. “You... blood... did I mention blood makes me nauseous?”

“Let's not even look at where you got shot, then,” he muttered, forcing himself up. “It's not that bad, Niddie. Scar tissue has its uses. I just need to fix this. I was kind of in a hurry last time, and it obviously didn't work properly.”

“You know neither of us is that stupid,” Veronica said, rising from her chair. “You probably needed a hospital just as much as we did.”

“Kind of hard to have health insurance when you're legally dead,” he reminded her as she got close. He didn't want to think about it right now, and he wasn't sure he could handle her touching him. “I'm fine. I just need to remember not to laugh. Which is going to be hard because I wanted to hear more about this idea of you going private.”

“Oh?” Veronica asked. “You think that's funny?”

Actually, he didn't. He liked the idea, a lot. If Veronica was working as a private citizen, she wouldn't have her associates scrutinized. She'd have the background to make a private agency legitimate, and she could still use old connections for information. That part was ideal. It would let her have all the parts about her current career that she liked without the downsides... like her boss becoming a psychotic stalker.

And a private detective could actually have some dealings with a fake psychic, if she so chose.

“It's not funny,” Enid said, sounding a bit like she was pouting. “We were a good team. You and me. Me and her. And you two were a good enough team to get away with murder before, so I think somehow the three of us would do just fine.”

He looked up at Veronica. “What do you think?”

“That I've lied to the FBI for a long time, and it's time to stop. That maybe enough people have died because of me.”

He wasn't sure he liked the sound of that, though. “You want to turn yourself in, confess to all of it? And, what, you expect us to be happy for you? I mean, if you're asking for opinions here, you have to know ours are biased. I'm sure as hell not going to tell you to admit everything. I can't. I do that, and I'm looking at a death sentence.”

“JD—”

“I can't stop you from clearing your conscience if that's what you want. I just happen to know what that means for me, and don't say it doesn't. You come clean about the past, and you have to do the same with the present.” He swallowed. “Should I be asking you to give me a head start?”

“I almost assumed you'd taken one,” Veronica told him, and he shrugged. A part of him wished he had, though he'd wanted to give his sister, at least, a chance to see him in the flesh again.

He wasn't sure where he and Veronica stood, and leaving without answering that question might have been easier. That was the dangerous thing about whatever was or wasn't between them. It could easily be the same dangerous slope it was before, and he couldn't pretend he was at his most sane around her.

He'd tried to stay away. He almost managed it, but like many addicts, he slipped and gave in and found himself too close again.

Still, if she chose to reveal all, then he would leave. He just wasn't sure if leaving meant leaving her and Enid or Veronica alone.

“I really don't like the idea of perjury, but I don't know that I could help you send Jay to his death,” Enid admitted. “If you go in there and say he was there... I'll tell them you were lying. That you must have hallucinated it or something because Jay was with me or something. I don't know, okay, but I won't let you kill him. I'm sorry. Your conscience isn't more important than his life, not to me.”

Veronica nodded. “I had a feeling you'd say that. I just... I'm not sure if I can go on with the bureau anymore. Richards did a lot to ruin my trust in everything but in myself and my instincts... I don't even know half the time what's real.”

JD reached for her hands. “You just need a way to rebuild that confidence. And frankly, I doubt the bureau is it. You should take some time off, go visit Martha and Betty. Get some perspective.”

“I have vacation coming,” Veronica agreed, “but if I go... you won't be here when I get back, neither of you will.”

“Well, Niddie's probably going to go back to Vegas and sober her mom up, so you might find her again,” he told her, and Enid gave him her patented _I hate when you do that_ look.

“And you?”

He shrugged. “I told you. I haven't decided.”

“I'm almost sure I'm leaving the bureau one way or another,” Veronica said. “Having my boss turn out to be a psychopath is a good reason to lose faith and quit.”

“Agreed.”

“Compromise?” Enid asked, and they both looked at her. “Since I can't quite go full off the grid until my mom... well, let's not think about that just yet, but I'm still tied to her in some sense. So I can be found. So if Jay disappears from you, he can still contact me—damned well better in some way, even if it's the most irritating way possible—and you can still find me through my mother.”

“That might work.”

“Or you could just say you're going to come to work with us and we'll all make plans together right now. I'd like a bit more say in our new office and its equipment.”

Veronica swallowed. “I'd have to know just how far you bend the rules when it comes to legal versus illegal activities.”

“Jay?”

“What, my stipulation?” He shook his head. He had so many, since he'd created the rules of his operation for very specific reasons, most ones he knew would keep him on a path that didn't end with more people dying. “We need our own slushie machine.”

“Oh, please. Like that's really your main concern if we work together.”

He met and held Veronica's gaze. “No, it's not.”

She flushed. “I... That's something else we need to... discuss.”

“Right,” Enid said. “Because you two are engaged.”

“What?”

* * *

“She's good at it, like you are,” Veronica said, looking back through the sliding glass door. Enid had passed out on her futon again after taking her medication and in spite of the coffee she insisted would keep her awake. “Pissing people off, I mean. That's all it was, her telling Heather—both Heathers—that I was engaged to her brother. And making me buy the dress to keep that cover.”

“I'd have liked to have seen it,” JD said, leaning against the railing. “Times like this make me wish I still smoked.”

“You really never went back to it?”

He shook his head. “Tried to, more than once, but instead of calming me down or any of the other things I used to use it for, it agitated me and tasted like shit. Like ash, every time, even when I changed brands. That, and half the time it would set off some sort of... PTSD, as they call it now, and I'd end up having a panic attack or wanting to go get high on morphine or ketamine.”

“What?”

“Big Bud kept me drugged after the bomb. I was so out of it there's whole months I don't remember, and when I got away from him, I was an addict. I really didn't think much beyond getting a hold of the next bit of drugs,” JD told her. She stared at him. He looked down at his feet. “I won't claim I was a good person, but that's really the time I'm not proud of. At least when I was with you, I was making my own decisions. Insane ones, but still ones I chose. As an addict... I didn't make any of my own decisions. The drugs did. And when I finally kicked them because I couldn't remember where the bulk of Bud's money was and wasn't willing to do... certain things to support my habit, I started to see things clearer. Not just from being sober. I mean all of it. My life. I was able to understand so much of what I'd done and seen and the games my father used to manipulate me into what he wanted, how he'd won and why. I dug deep into the psychology books, did enough research where I could have written papers about it, and I could see it more and more in people around me... I could see their little ticking time bombs, how close they were to destroying themselves. Some made those choices. Others didn't. And I got fascinated by why.”

“And that led you to being a fake psychic?”

He shrugged. “What do you think of when you hear the word vigilante?”

“You want the pop culture reference or the FBI interpretation?”

“A vigilante is as much an enemy as a killer to most law enforcement. And to a lot of people, you're just hired muscle, which while it had appeal to my homicidal side, was not what I was after. And you know why conventional law enforcement was out and even being a private detective had issues, but a psychic? I thought I'd found a gold mine.”

Veronica smiled at that. “Maybe you did. After all, it led you to Enid.”

He looked back at the woman in the bed. “I never wanted a sibling.”

“Big Bud's abuse would make you want to spare anyone that life.”

“I don't want to care about anyone, Veronica. Everyone I care about leaves me or turns on me, and I can't do that again. I almost killed someone for you. I did pull that trigger. He just didn't die in an instant. That's... it's a dangerous place for me.”

“Sounds like you need more than a fake psychic act to keep your nefarious side in line.”

He snorted. “I'm psychotic, remember? The solution to me is locking me up and throwing away the key. Or eliminating the problem altogether.”

“I don't know. Maybe Enid's right and there's still good in you.”

Veronica watched him meet her eyes, and her stomach twisted into knots. She wanted to blame it on her own medication, but she hadn't taken it.

“We're bad for each other, you know that, right? We could do a lot worse this time around.”

“With Enid there to keep us in line?”

He shook his head. “Don't make me laugh. Please. Not just because we have to be serious about this. My side hurts like hell if I do.”

“I realized something when Richards and Brad had me,” Veronica told him. “I... I can't lose you a second time. I don't know how to do this, but I want you to be a part of my life.”

“Okay, you _are_ crazy. Let's go get them to find you your nice padded cell and—”

“Now who's trying to make who laugh?”

“No,” he said, reaching over to touch her face. “I'm not. It's crazy for you to want me anywhere near you, and I know that. I've always known that. I think we have to stick with Enid's compromise. You need time to sort all this out, and maybe you won't feel like that later.”

Veronica sighed. That was the practical thing to do. She should do it. 

“You kissed me.”

“Yes. I did.”

“And I suppose it was just to shut me up.”

“I'd be lying if I said that,” he told her, smiling as he did. “Still, it was effective. So it might be better to say that was all it was. Stick to the compromise.”

Veronica nodded. “For now.”


End file.
